Wednesday the 8th of June marked the global celebration of World Ocean Day, an initiative that highlights the important role the ocean has for our life and the planet.
This year, Irish environmental charity Clean Coasts joined forces with National Spring Clean for the second year running to provide volunteers and communities in Clare with free clean up kits to host a clean-up in honour of World Ocean Day.
Statistics have shown that the number one cause of marine litter is litter dropped in towns and cities and getting involved in World Ocean Day was a great way for residents of non-coastal counties to help prevent litter entering our waterways by tackling the problem at the source.
Over 200 volunteers collected over a tonne of litter at the 10 clean-up events held both on land and by the Clare coast to prevent litter pollution at the source to ensure it does not end up in the ocean.
The World Ocean Day organisation supports collaborative conservation, working with its global network of youth and organizational leaders in more than 140 countries. In 2021, the initiative changed its name from “World Oceans Day” to “World Ocean Day”. By dropping the “s”, its organisers wanted to highlight the fact that we are all connected by a large ocean. This shared ocean supports all life on the planet, by producing most of the oxygen we breathe and regulating climate. No matter where we live, we all depend on the ocean to survive.
The organisation had stated that the focus of 2022 would be once again on the 30×30 campaign: to create a healthy ocean with abundant wildlife and to stabilize the climate, it is critical that 30% of our planet’s lands, waters, and ocean are protected by 2030.
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. Clean Coasts were incredibly excited to have over 200 activities happening across Ireland this month so far to mark and support World Ocean Day. The amazing efforts shown on and around World Ocean Day, as well as the work of Clean Coasts volunteers all year round, are incredibly inspiring and provide a great deal of hope for the future of the worlds Ocean.”
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 two Marine Biodiversity 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 and a breakdown of the various marine and coastal life categories.
There are still a number of World Ocean Day Clare events scheduled to take place throughout the month of June so be sure to head to our website at https://cleancoasts.org/our-initiatives/world-ocean-day/ .
If you won’t get a chance to get involved with the World Ocean Day initiative this year Clean Coasts are holding event nationwide throughout summer 2022. For more information on these events head to our website at www.cleancoasts.org to stay up to date on what’s happening.