Brunei's Local News - Brudirect.com

Bandar Seri Begawan – Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, will be arriving in Brunei this afternoon on a two-day official visit.

The heir to the British throne, who is a long-time advocate of environmental causes, will plant the 1,000th tree for the reforestation project in the Badas reserve area in Belait district, the British High Commission said in a media release.

Over the past six months, children from international and local schools have planted hundreds of trees to rehabilitate a fire-damaged area of primary rainforest in degraded Bruneian peatlands.

The planting of the 1,000th tree in the Badas reserve is an important landmark and forms part of the International School of Brunei's "Million Trees" project aimed at helping to restore forest

continuity across Borneo in support of the Heart of Borneo (HoB) initiative, said the British High Commission.

British High Commissioner John Saville said “We are delighted that the Prince and Duchess are visiting Brunei and seeing for themselves the strong educational link with the UK, as well as the important work which is being done in the Borneo rainforest as part of the fight against climate change.

"Brunei has played a pivotal role in achieving consensus for the three-nation Heart of Borneo initiative and has allocated around 60 per cent of its land area to the initiative and has created strong popular civil society support," he said.

During the Prince's visit to the HoB project in Batas, he will meet the main movers behind Brunei's conservation work from the government and private sector and talk to local schoolchildren about their involvement in the Million Trees project.

As official guests of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam, the royal couple will have an audience with the Brunei ruler on Friday evening before attending a state banquet at Istana Nurul Iman.

The following day, the Prince and the Duchess will meet students and staff of University Brunei Darussalam which possesses strong links with a number of British universities, including the University of Wales, of which the Prince is Chancellor.

The Prince will present certificates to 26 Bruneian students who have graduated from the University of Wales Institute in Cardiff over the last two years. The royal couple will also witness a workshop for students on Islamic art techniques run by the Prince's School of Traditional Arts (PSTA), a charity organization based at the. Prince's Foundation in Shoreditch, London.

Their Royal Highnesses will also travel to the British Garrison in Seria to meet soldiers and their families and witness training exercise used for desert and jungle warfare. -- Courtesy of The Brunei Times