Mauritius oil spill develops into ecological disaster

The Mauritius oil spill has developed into an ecological catastrophe of massive proportions because the island's government and the owners of the ship failed to act swiftly and decisively, says a Greenpeace representative in an exclusive interview with Newsflash. Sunil Dowarkasing, representing Greenpeace Africa in Mauritius and a native himself, said only the private intervention by locals in building protective booms and gathering up the leaked oil offers hope that the worst damage to Mauritius' unique nature can still be avoided. Mr Dowarkasing, 61, is a PhD researcher who has a master's degree in Environmental Management. Speaking about the official response, he said that the "government took too much time to respond to this incident. As soon as the ship [was] wrecked, the government should have already taken all the precautions and we would never have been in such a situation."