Talking Trash Tour 2014, Brisbane to Sydney 7Jan

Tim Silverwood from Take 3 and Adrian Midwood from Ocean Ambassadors are teaming up to lead an exciting 4-week sailing adventure from Brisbane to Sydney onboard the sustainable catamaran the S.V. Moana. The tour runs from 7th Jan to 3rd Feb 2014

Visiting up to 15 communities enroute the plan is to educate the community about plastic pollution and inspire local action.

Please follow the link to the event page and invite friends in the areas listed. We need a lot of help to make this project a success so please let us know if you can assist!!

www.facebook.com/events/557093521043698

The Talking Trash Tour

7 January at 08:00 in UTC+11

Brisbane to Sydney

39 people are going

www.ausmepa.org.au

Tangaroa Blue is Caring for Our Country at Mapoon

Volunteers from Mapoon Land and Sea Rangers, Conservation Volunteers Australia, GhotsNets Australia and Tangaroa Blue spent 5 days removing 3687kg of rubbish from Mapoon Back Beach. Along with 2563 gill net floats (that you can buy from them), 877 cigarette lighters they also collected 7154 orphan thongs - smashing the Cape York record.

Did the all the debris go to landfill? Nope. Eight silo bags of plastic were diverted from landfill, compacted and sent to Brisbane for recycling. Several other organisations worked cooperatively with the group. To find out more you can be inspired by reading the whole article here on the Tangaroa Blue website.

Congratulations to all volunteers and partner organisations for a spectacular effort!
Thanks also to Caring for Our Country for providing funding assistance.

Teachers wishing to incorporate Marine Stormwater Pollution into their teaching plans can visit AUSMEPA's website here.

www.ausmepa.org.au

TeachWild Marine Debris Art Competition Alert 2013

See TeachWild website here

Join TeachWild and the fight against marine debris by putting your hands up and showing your support.

For this year’s World Oceans Day, TeachWild is asking all schools and community groups to participate in a national art competition. We are asking classes to create artwork in the shape of a hand using only marine debris found to tell the message. You can use the rubbish found from your local beaches, creeks, rivers or anywhere else that ultimately ends up in the oceans. The more creative you can get the better. We will also have a sustainability prize pack for the winning class (more details to follow).

To find out how you can get involved in TeachWild’s national art competition 

Please register your interest in participating in the fight against marine debris by contacting Nonnie Kamau (see below) by email for more details. Artwork will be showcased at an event in early June therefore places will be limited by registering your interest. 

Quick facts on the competition:

ü  Competition is in recognition to World Ocean’s Day on June 8.

ü  Artwork is to be made up marine debris and made into the shape of a hand

ü  Get your class to submit video questions for CSIRO scientists to answer at the event

ü  Entries close May 17^th 2013

So hands up! Who would like to work towards cleaner marine environment?

For further information contact: 

Nonnie Kamau  mkamau@earthwatch.org.au

Programs Support

Earthwatch Australia

www.teachwild.org.au

126 Bank Street, South Melbourne, VIC 3205

Office: +61 (03) 9016 7590  l   Direct: +61 (03) 8102 1206  l   earthwatch.org.au

Connect with Earthwatch on      

www.ausmepa.org.au

DYI Litter Survey

Marine and Beach Debris Litter Survey

by Leonie Ebert 8 Feb 2011
The E

Description

The Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board produced this instructional movie on the marine and beach debris litter survey so more people can become aware of the impact marine debris has on our coastal regions, flora and fauna. 

NRM contacts for your region can be found here http://www.nrm.gov.au/contact/officers.html

www.ausmepa.org.au

TEDxNewy TALK: Tim Silverwood - How did our lives become so plastic?

In July 2011, Tim Silverwood sailed 5000km from Hawaii to Vancouver to research and document the accumulation of plastic in the infamous North Pacific Gyre, otherwise known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Tim, a keen surfer, developed a love affair with the ocean from a young age and has since become an advocate and activist of the need to protect our sea from the scourge of plastic pollution. Tim is an ambassador for Keep Australia Beautiful and is co-founder of the non-profit organization, 'Take 3' that asks everyone to simply take 3 pieces of rubbish with them when they leave the beach, waterway or... anywhere. Tim is currently gathering content for an Australian based documentary on the plastic pollution issue.

www.timsilverwood.com

www.ausmepa.org.au

GHOST NETS 2004-2009; Summary Report from Australia's northern shores

Article taken from GNA news issue 5 

Ghost Nets Australia (GNA) Summary Report Between 2004 and 2009, Ghost Nets Australia (GNA) rangers removed and recorded 6,035 nets of varying sizes across approximately 1500km of north Australian coastline. The data that rangers recorded from these nets built into such a large database that GNA thought it was about time to get it published! So in the middle of this year, the data was collated into a summary report that gives an indication of the type and origins of the nets, as well as highlighting the impact that they have on the marine environment. All this data highlighted distinct patterns showing the accumulation of nets in certain areas, or net ‘hotspots.’ These hotspots are predominantly found in the north-eastern and north-western corners of the Gulf and are the reason why the rangers in those areas are working so hard to clear their beaches! By matching the nets found to examples in the ‘Net Kit’, compiled by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an indication of both their type of fishery and the country from which they originated has been possible. The most frequently recorded nets were trawl nets and came from Taiwan and Indonesia. Ghost nets are a threat to many marine animals, particularly turtles (of which six of the world’s seven species are found in north Australian waters).  The nets recorded by GNA contained fish, crabs, sharks, sea snakes, crocodiles, dugong and over 100 turtles.  Unfortunately, the true number of animals caught in nets could be expected to be significantly higher than that recorded, as the passage of time may see many of the trapped animals decay out of the net before they are found. The results of the summary report confirm what rangers have been saying for many years - ghost nets are a huge problem in north Australia. It is only through the hard work that rangers do to record and remove the nets that people will understand the problem and change can happen. The GhostNets team would like to send a big thank you to all the rangers who recorded this data, to everyone who helped put this document together and to those who have helped make the program a success. Copies of the 2004-2009 GNA Summary Report can be found on the GhostNets Australia websitewww.ghostnets.com.au

www.ausmepa.org.au

GHOST NETS AUSTRALIA: Dealing with debris

An article taken from GNA issue 5 here

From GNA newsletter here

Since 2010 Ghost Nets Australia (GNA) has expanded our work to a broader issue of marine debris, we did this as a normal response after clearing the beach of nets, naturally moving on to the rest of the rubbish brought in by the tides. In doing this we became part of a global movement to combat marine litter. 

We’ve discovered that this rubbish issue is bigger than our scope and wish to introduce a partner “Tangaroa Blue” who works with community groups to clean beaches and record information about this rubblish.  Heidi Taylor is the founder of Tangaroa Blue and talks about how her organisation came about;

Once you start picking up marine debris on the beach, it's hard to walk past any item that shouldn't be there. Back in 2004 walks along Ellensbrook Beach in the south west of Western Australia meant coming back with armfuls of rubbish, so we started taking bags with us, and always managed to fill those, and so we started organising beach clean ups. And guess what? We never come back with an empty rubbish bag.....

That's when Tangaroa Blue Ocean Care Society was formed and launched The Australian Marine Debris Initiative. And by 2011 more than 6500 volunteers along 500 coastal sites around  Australia have removed well over 650,000 bits of marine debris. Now not only did we want to remove the debris from the coast to ensure that it wouldn't entangle or be ingested by marine life and seabirds, but we collected data on exactly what we were finding, and this is all housed in the National Marine Debris Database.

The goal for the database is to provide information and evidence on what is being washed up at different sites around Australia and New Zealand, which can then be used to help trace the items back to the source, and ultimately to find practical ways of stopping those items from ending up in the marine enviornment in the first place.
Communities, industry groups, government agencies, schools and individual volunteers have joined the Australian Marine Debris Initiative by adopting a section of coastline on which to run regular marine debris monitoring clean ups and clean up materials, training & support and educational materials are all provided for those who register.

For more information on how to get involved visit www.oceancare.org.au or email heidi@oceancare.org.au

Teachers wishing to incorporate marine studies into their teaching plans AUSMEPA has units of work on Marine Stormwater Pollution here and Student Leadership here, which may assist in getting students working with community projects like these.

www.ausmepa.org.au

5th International Marine Debris Conference 20-25 March 2011

The 5th International Marine Debris Conference will take place March 20-25, 2011 in Honolulu, HI, U.S.A.  here

Waves of Change: Global lessons to inspire local action

Date: March 20-25, 2011

Location: Honolulu, Hawai‘i, USA

Co-organizers: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United Nations Environment Programme

It is our hope that this conference will open a new chapter in the field of marine debris by reinvigorating our efforts, providing new tools and information, and inspiring innovation. This new era relies on sharing across borders—building upon successes, taking away lessons from others’ experiences, and working towards common goals. This conference is being designed with a variety of tracks, themes, and session types, with all paths leading to the shared goal of moving forward, globally and locally, in combating the economic and environmental impacts of marine debris.http://www.5imdc.org/program/abstracts/