Over 200 volunteers collected over a tonne of litter at the 20 clean-up events that took place last weekend to mark World Ocean Day.
This year, Irish environmental charity Clean Coasts joined forces with National Spring Clean for the second year running to provide volunteers and communities in Donegal with free clean up kits to host clean-up in honour of World Ocean Day.
The initiative highlights the important role the ocean has for our life and the planet.
The clean-up events were held both on land and by the Donegal coast to prevent litter pollution at the source, to ensure it does not end up in the ocean.
A few key events that took place for World Ocean Day in Donegal were carried out by Rathmullan Clean Coasts and Mowi Ireland.
Rathmullan Clean Coasts organised a beach clean and several members of the community came out to support while some Mowi staff located in Lough Swilly decided to come together to organise their own clean-up event.
Sinead McCoy, Coastal Communities Manager said: “World Ocean Day is a great opportunity for individuals, groups and communities to take action for Ocean Health and lend their voice of support to actions that call for more protection of our ocean.
“The amazing efforts shown on and around World Ocean Day, as well as the work of Clean Coast volunteers all year round, are incredibly inspiring and provide a great deal of hope for the future of the world’s ocean.”
The World Ocean Day organisation supports collaborative conservation, working with its global network of youth and organisational leaders in more than 140 counties.
They said that the focus of 2022 would be once again on the 30×30 campaign: to create a healthy ocean with abundant wildlife and to stabilise the climate, it is critical that 30% of the planet’s lands, waters and ocean are protected by 2030.
Clean Coasts also celebrated World Ocean day with the release of a fourth ‘Enjoy and Protect’ guide about wildlife photography for people wishing to enter the Clean Coasts Love Your Coast Amateur Photography competition as well as the general public who wish to capture the beauty of our coastline while taking action to protect it.
Last month, Marine Biodiveristy guides were also issued that included a zones and habitats directory as well as a species directory to specify the area that certain wildlife (both marine and otherwise) exist in a breakdown of the various marine and coastal life categories.
There are still a number of World Ocean Day Donegal events scheduled to take place throughout the month of June and they can be found at: https://cleancoasts.org/our-initiatives/world-ocean-day/
Clean Coasts are holding events nationwide throughout the summer. For more information on these events, visit www.cleancoasts.org to stay up to date on what’s happening.
