During the past three years, the Tangaroa Blue Foundation team have been privileged to work with Indigenous communities throughout Cape York and the Torres Strait Islands on the marine debris issue. In these remote areas where access and logistics can be extremely difficult Indigenous Land & Sea Rangers, school teachers and students, community members and councils have supported the Australian Marine Debris Initiative by running beach clean-ups and data collection, as well as creating local source reduction plans to stop marine debris before it enters the environment.
With the amazing wealth of knowledge of their Saltwater Country from our Indigenous partners, along with Tangaroa Blue’s expertise on marine debris, we are proud to release the first Cape York Marine Debris Management Plan. The goal of the plan is to highlight the amounts and types of marine debris found in this remote area of Australia, identifying that much of this debris is washing up from other areas of Australia and from overseas, and to look at creative and innovative strategies that will help improve the marine and coastal environment that can be replicated around the country.
A huge thank you to all the Indigenous communities that have supported the AMDI program and provided information and images for this plan, we look forward to seeing you again now the dry season is coming around. Thanks also to the Tangaroa Blue team, Dr. Max Tischler, Dr. Owen O’Shea, Wally Smith, Karen Ashton, Heidi Taylor and Dave Smith for their work in bringing this document together and Caring for Our Country funding which supported the creation of this plan.
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