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Seychelles plans its first-ever coconut festival

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Seychelles, the island nation in the western Indian Ocean plans to host its first-ever coconut festival later this year. Seychelles is stepping up its efforts to recognise and give due value to the coconut by reopening the “Mize Koko” – the coconut museum – dedicated to the nut’s significant importance and contribution to the islanders’ lives. The opening of the museum is the first step in the agency’s plan to host the first coconut festival in Seychelles later in September.

Seychelles, the island nation in the western Indian Ocean plans to host its first-ever coconut festival later this year. Seychelles is stepping up its efforts to recognise and give due value to the coconut by reopening the “Mize Koko” – the coconut museum – dedicated to the nut’s significant importance and contribution to the islanders’ lives. The opening of the museum is the first step in the agency’s plan to host the first coconut festival in Seychelles later in September.

The museum will also be used to give visitors a live experience, tasting the coconut and various delicacies made from it, as well as participating in different coconut-related physical activities part of the island’s culture and tradition. The museum’s is an initiative of the Creative Seychelles Agency (CSA) and the Seychelles National Institute of Culture, Heritage, and the Arts (SNICHA). The museum will not only offer visitors a new attraction, where they get information through an exhibition with features on coconut and the economy, the history of coconut amongst others, and view different artifacts made from the coconut but visitors will be sold an experience.

Seychelles plans to hold the festival on the International Day of the Coconut ie. September 2, making Seychelles the third country in the world after India and the Philippines to do that. The organisers plan to hold several competitions for tourists. CSA hopes to host this festival as an international event where other countries can attend and compete.

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The Mize Koko is based at Domaine Val de Pres at Au Cap on the east of the main island of Mahe. The museum is located in the same location as a similar museum which closed down some 20 years ago. In the early 1960s, Seychelles was producing some 45,000 tonnes of coconut turned into copra and oil to export to Europe as well as some Asian countries including India. But today most of the plantations have been cleared making way for many infrastructure developments. But the crucial and vital role that the plantation era played in the Seychelles, before tourism is not forgotten. In recent years there has been an effort to revive the plantation, for instance, on Coetivity Island, where cold-pressed coconut oil is the main product.