Plant trees for Sir Michael, no lanterns

LET us honour our Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare our way.
No sky lanterns.
Plant a tree instead.
There is a safer way to honour our grand chief.
I read this account from a friend Jagar Renagi Va’a on Facebook and I was convinced to honour our grand chief our way.
Jagar’s post read: “When I was five years old, my grandfather taught me the symbolic meaning of planting a tree. It represented life and a future. Be it a coconut tree, a betel nut tree, a breadfruit tree, sugarcane or a flower. It represented life. This tree will provide for you one day. It will make you sing, give you seeds and one day your children will plant their future. When he passed away, I planted a tree behind our house because that’s what he’d want us to have, life and a future.”
Sky lanterns took to the sky as military signals above the battlefields of ancient China, and are sometimes called kongming lanterns after a legendary third century Chinese general who first put them to use.
Today, people all around the world view them as good luck symbols but the environmental effects, as proven, are profound and damaging to wildlife and people.
Papua New Guineans, let us be authentic and symbolic in our gesture. Let’s do things with perspective while showing honour.
We are blessed with and have more ways to show honour through our tribal connections and practices and lanterns is not one of them.
We have kundus, our garamuts, our conch shells, our dances, our beach fires, our chants and songs.
Let us honour our Grand Chief our way.
If we want to have a long lasting, eco-friendly memorial that is honoring and that celebrates life and points to a future, I suggest we plant trees.
A million lanterns is a million reasons how not to farewell our grand chief.
I am sure that on the eve of Sept 16, 1975, our Grand Chief was adamant that celebrating our Independence would be done our way.
Quoted from Jagar Renagi Va’a.
Thank you brother Jagar for sharing.
I will say my prayers and plant a couple of trees on March 12.

Mark Tinah, Lae