Challenges We Face With Plastic
Ghost Nets
Discarded Fishing Nets That Ensnare Marine Life
Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been lost, dumped overboard, or abandoned. Nets can get hooked on the reef and cut, lost overboard, or long lines abandoned. When animals die in the net, they attract scavengers who also have the same chance of getting trapped in the net and then die.
Microplastics
One of the Most Challenging Issues Facing Us
Every piece of plastic that has ever been created by humans- STILL EXISTS. Most of it floating in the ocean gets weak and breaks apart into “microplastics”. This in incredibly dangerous for animals that are used to eating floating plankton and small creatures. Microplastic is easily misidentified as food and eaten.
Case and point: Midway Island.
Free Flow Pollution
We Must Stop The Source
The countries that release the most plastic pollution into the oceans also are the ones with vastly inadequate or non-existent recycling facilities to handle the amount of single use plastic that is consumed by its residents.
Survival & Revival
We as human have cohabited on Earth with all ocean animals for hundreds of thousands of years. In the 1960s scientists first discovered ocean plastic pollution while studying plankton. We have put their entire world at risk of being uninhabitable. Humanity needs a two fold approach to stop the inflow of plastic and collect the existing marine litter.
Conservation
To conserve something is to nurture it- ensuring that it lasts as long as possible. The most effective way to conserve your resources is to teach young generations why it is important- and that is something anyone can start doing TODAY.
Restoration
Through aquaculture and extensive dedication by stewards of the world, we can become coral farmers to help restore the reefs to their former glory.
It is our responsibility to fix what we have damaged.
Changing Our Way of Life
All animals on Earth must learn to live together symbiotically instead of at the expense of another species. We have become so accustomed to a convenient lifestyle at the expense of other species.
Life is not convenient and every person is capable of extra steps to recycle, buying food in bulk, not using straws, choose products that use recycled or biodegradable materials, are fair-trade, or locally produced.
Consumers are the most powerful motivators for change. Vote for companies to change the way they operate by using your dollar and purchasing power!
TOGETHER WE WILL SUCCEED
It took the entire world to create the predicament we are in…
and it will take the entire world to help solve it.
This dream is decades in the making. At the very least, we owe it to our children and our grandchildren to leave the world the same as when we entered it, if not better.
““The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope.
Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning:
we are all in the same boat.” ”