DoñAna, Free of Marine Litter
More than 100 participants in the volunteer day “Clean Tides in Doñana” collected about 70 kg of waste last Saturday, September 26, on the beach of the Doñana Natural Area and on a stretch of the urban beach in the town of Matalascañas (Huelva). Among the different types of waste, plastics, fishing-related items, and cigarette butts stood out in significant numbers.
The Association Hombre y Territorio, together with the Seville Aquarium, organized this volunteer day focusing on the issue of marine litter. This activity is part of the Beaches, Rivers, Volunteering, and Land Stewardship Program of the Biodiversity Foundation, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Environment.
More than 100 people participated in the event last Saturday, September 26, including several schoolchildren, mainly individuals who were transported from Seville by bus, and some groups and individuals from the area of action (Volunteers from Seo/BirdLife-Doñana and Volunteers from the Doñana Natural Area) who spent part of the morning collecting waste found in the urban beach area and the protected beach area. At the end of the activity, participants had the opportunity to take a free themed visit to the Seville Aquarium, focusing on the impacts associated with marine ecosystems.
Waste collection was carried out on 800 m of beach (400 urban area and 400 protected area) in order to characterize the different types found, to contribute data to the database being collected through the MARNOBA Protocol on marine litter found on beaches across the national territory. Of the waste found, the most numerous category was cigarette butts, close to 15,000 in total. Although the most abundant in volume were plastics, such as containers, caps, drinking straws, food wrappers, cotton swabs, etc. Fishing-related waste (ropes, strings, and remnants of nets) was also found. The amount of wet bath wipes found in the urban area was also striking. Rubble, textiles, and other metal elements were also found. The protected area did not differ much from the urban area due to its proximity and easy access on foot by the population. In any case, as can be extracted from different studies and projects developed around marine litter, no area is free from this waste, which moves through currents and tides.
Marine Litter has become a problem that affects humans much more than at first one might imagine: it is not only an ecological and aesthetic issue of great importance, but also a socioeconomic matter that is ultimately affecting human health due to the problems being detected with derivatives of much of this waste. If we also consider the direct effect on many protected marine species, the situation becomes worrying: thousands of marine animals die each year due to ingestion or entanglement with this waste, defined as Marine Litter: it is estimated that around 1 million seabirds and more than 10,000 marine mammals and sea turtles are affected by the 10 million tons that humans dump into the oceans each year.
The activity has had the collaboration of the Doñana Natural Area, the transport company Rosabus, Solocanarias, and Rafael Gelo Photography.
All photos of the activity here: https://goo.gl/OjZwW1