Hey fellow readers, and welcome back to this week’s blog post! Not much has changed since my last post, as limu and I are still making our journey across the ocean to our next destination which happens to be further than I thought. But we’ll talk about that in my next post, today however I wanted to share an interesting experience we had while drifting in the open sea. While navigating the rough currents and deep blue waters early this morning, we stumbled across a patch of what seemed to be heaps of seaweed tangled together. However, as we investigated further it wasn’t seaweed, in fact it was a mess of fishing nets, bits of plastic, and other trash. Limu tells me she’s seen this before but I happened to be quite shocked at the site. The concerning amount of trash wasn’t just an eyesore above water it seemed to be affecting many living creatures as well. A few young fish were trapped in the maze of tangled plastic and we had to work carefully to help them without getting ourselves tangled. Limu explains how these piles of trash can be extremely dangerous and I ask her if humans were again the culprit of this mass pollution. She sorrowfully told me of how many “fisherman” dump these nets or let them be washed away by the tide without any thought of how it affects ocean life.
Fortunately this problem might be lessened within the next decade! A company known as The Ocean Cleanup is already making huge steps towards making our oceans cleaner. They have already deployed programs across the world for river and ocean cleanups using clean up boats called “interceptors” that were designed to depollute the world’s most contaminated rivers. But there’s a new exciting plan that’s being put into action called the 30 cities program. By 2030 they plan to have cut ocean plastic pollution from rivers by one third. This means they will be tackling this issue one river at a time in 30 different cities in the hopes of significantly reducing pollution rates. In fact, the first city they will deploy to is Panama! That’s actually where Limu and I are headed to right now, and many other Hawksbill turtles frequently migrate there as it’s a crucial nesting ground. Not only will this be beneficial for us Hawksbills but also the many other sea creatures that dwell on the reefs of Panama’s coast. Since the first launches of The Ocean Cleanup they have prevented 29 million kilograms of trash from entering our oceans. As a result less toxic chemicals are leached into our waters and fewer sea life are ingesting these harmful plastics. I’m most excited to visit the beautiful mangroves of Panama, because they have the largest variety of mangroves in the Americas. Unfortunately 50% of this ecosystem has been destroyed by things like urban expansion and contaminated run off. Hopefully Limu and I will now get to explore Panama’s beautiful ecosystems without the burdens of pollution.
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