Cape York and Neighboring Island Countries Marine Debris partnerships

Tangaroa Blue Foundation (TBF) is an Australian-wide not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the removal and prevention of marine debris. TBF facilitates its work through the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI). AMDI is an on-ground network of volunteers, communities and organisations that contribute data from rubbish collected during beach and river clean-up events to the AMDI Database, and then work on solutions to stop the flow of litter at the source. The AMDI helps communities look after their coastal environment by providing resources and support programs, and collaborates with industry and government to create change on a large scale.

This commitment relates to our ongoing program of working with indigenous communities in Cape York in far north Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands to help those communities deal with the very significant volumes of marine debris being deposited on their remote coasts. Currently this involves major clean-up efforts at strategic locations, data collection and source reduction activities.

Data collected to date shows the eastern side of Cape York receives 96% of its debris from offshore with information collected from items indicating the main sources to be shipping waste, debris carried from Melanesia and nearer Polynesian locations and fishing gear. Western Cape York receives 88% of its debris from offshore with labels showing a South East Asian origin, together with shipping waste and fishing gear. The Torres Strait region receives 54% of its debris from offshore but sources are yet to be clearly determined due to data limitations.

This commitment is to expand the work in Cape York and Torres Strait by creating partnerships in neighboring island nations and countries. The processes leading to release of plastic waste into land environments and the channeling of that waste into the ocean follows similar patterns in all countries. These partnerships would aim to encourage and assist where possible, local communities to carry out clean-ups and collect data as an important first step in local engagement in marine debris. The second step being to encourage the communities to begin developing simple source reduction plans to prevent local inputs of marine debris into their local rivers and seas.

Partnerships will provide benefits to local communities by providing access to TBF web based resources which support the two steps of submitting clean-up data into the AMDI Database and sharing information and logistical methods used to remove debris and what to do with recovered debris. The process, enables the collection of marine debris information and data across the region which can become a resource which governments and higher level partnerships in the region can utilize in addressing marine debris sources which transcend any single island country.