Saving turtles by removing plastic bags from the reef
Last week I joined the Mariposa Diveshop crew and guests in a reef cleanup dive at the northern reef of Pandan Island. The reef is a protected marine sanctuary but since it is out of sight of the resort, people fish there illegally. The fishing technique involves a plastic bag with a stone inside as weight. The hooks with baits are hooked into the plastic bag, the bag is dropped in the water and once it reaches the bottom, the line is tightened and the hook rips off. The fishermen then hope that on the way up back to the boat a fish will bite. As a result of this practice there are thousands of plastic bags filled with a stone distributed over a large area at the northern reef of the island.
The bags constitute a hazard for turtles, that come often to Pandan Island for laying their eggs, because the move slightly with the currents and are mistaken by the turtles for see grass.
On Thursday, before going back home, I joined a group of divers on a reef cleanup dive with the objective to remove as many bags as possible in a single dive. The photo shows the two net bags in which we collected the recovered plastic bags. Nobody counted them but it must have been hundreds.
During special days divers sometimes organize for a reef cleanup. It would be nice if dive groups who spend several days diving in the Philippines would spend one dive collectively to help clean up a reef on a more regular basis.
Further Reading
NPR: Plastic is suffocating coral reefs — and it’s not just bottles and bags
Climate Impact Tracker: Plastic Pollution in the Philippines: A Call For Urgent Action
University of Portsmouth: Study reveals alarming plastic pollution problem in the Philippines
University of Exeter: Surface clean-up technology won’t solve ocean plastic problem