Rep. n° 15/2026
Suva, October 19, 2026. On June 16, 2022, a rare endemic species native to Fiji— Gymnostoma vitiense —was planted in Thurston Gardens in Suva, the capital of Fiji, as part of the Tree of Peace initiative. The primary partners for this planting were the Suva City Council and the Delegation of the European Union to the Pacific – EEAS.
As the planting of the 44th Tree of Peace in Tuvalu was rescheduled for Monday, October 19, Mr Lukáš Macek represented Marek Sobola at a meeting with the Management of the Suva City Council. On behalf of Marek Sobola, Mr Macek conveyed greetings from Slovakia to the Council’s Acting Director and Chairman, Mr Tevita Boseiwaqa. He also presented gifts from the Kysuce region: a wire bowl crafted using traditional wire-working techniques, a book on the Slovak craft of wire-working, and a portrait of Ondrej Sobola (*1880 – †missing since 1915; officially declared dead on December 31, 1918), a native of Lalinok village (Slovakia) whose true story inspired the launch of the international Tree of Peace initiative in 2018. At the conclusion of this courtesy visit, Mr Tevita Boseiwaqa sent a historical map of the Fiji Islands to Marek Sobola via Mr Macek.
However, the visit to Thurston Gardens brought both disappointment and a surprise. Not a trace remains in the park of the memorial tree and pillar from 2022. The tree likely withered, and the commemorative pillar was stolen. However, the City Council has committed to replanting a Tree of Peace at the original site—at its own expense—and placing a new commemorative pillar next to it.
A Tree of Peace was planted somewhere around here in 2022
