The first
South West World Heritage Area
Marine Debris survey in 1999 was run as a fully funded collaborative project
organised by National Parks and the Surfrider Foundation. The comprehensive
logistical effort was jointly coordinated by Helen Pryor and Craig Saunders.
The project integrated Orange Belly Parrot and Rubbish Monitoring, with
participants deployed to beaches via helicopter to camp and spend the days
listening for parrots and collecting rubbish. The rubbish was counted as it
was collected, bagged up placed in a net and slung under a helicopter for
the trip back to beaches inside Port Davey.
Unfortunately there was not enough project money to bring the rubbish back
via helicopter. A fortuitous meeting with a cray deckhand at a local pub led
me to a generous cray-fisherman called Dave Wyatt. He offered to take his
Scottish built, canoe stern cray boat the Isabelle May on the 12 hour steam
around the coast from Dover to collect the rubbish. This trip was the first
of many around the coast with Dave. Future trips to the south west Tasmanian
wilderness started as unpaid tucker trips helping out as a deckhand and then
as the coordinator of the subsequent cleanups and numerous crayfishing,
fishing, photography and charter trips.
Steaming through the narrows to collect the rubbish from the first
cleanup.
Summer 1999
For the subsequent cleanups we decided to use the local cray fishermen for
the cleanup along with Dave's dad Mal on his beautiful yacht the Moonwatch.
Instead of the helicopters we accessed the beaches in tinnie's and zodiacs
and slept aboard the boats so we could be sure to move to sheltered waters
in case the roaring 40's whipped up the 15 metre plus swell the region is
famous for .
Out the Back!
All cleanups prior to 2002 had been run on a shoestring, sometimes with small government grants but usually with some early morning crayfishing to help pay the fuel bills, some personal funds and the generosity of Dave and his mates.
In 2002 we won the inaugural Federal Environment Ministers Coastal
Custodians award so we could finally pay Dave the fuel costs for the trip
and leverage some other in-kind sponsorship of food from the
Wursthaus Kitchen. We
were slowly refining the technique of collecting and collating the
rubbish. By 2005 we were picking up the rubbish during the day and returning to the boats of an evening and then tipping the rubbish onto
a tarp and then having an hour or two of frenzied counting.
Rubbish sorters from the counters chair
Tally Sheet from the 2006 Cleanup - Click to enlarge
The next year I was fortunate to be named a Coca-Cola Community Environment
Award finalist and won some money to keep the trip going. After a face to
face meeting with British polar adventurer
Robert Swan I won the major prize and
within weeks was on my way to the Antarctic Peninsula on a two week
Leadership Training and Development course titled 'Leadership on the edge'.
This life changing experience showed me what a small group of dedicated
people can achieve with perseverance and passion. It also showed me that
corporate sponsorship is a viable way forward if you want to really achieve
your goals into the long term.
2008 saw the Quiksilver Foundation
step up and provide the first corporate financial sponsorship for the
cleanup, this was supplemented by some leftover prize money and ongoing
support from the Wursthaus Kitchen. By now we had a semi regular local pool of experienced and willing
volunteers plus sponsor positions and the fleet was up to between 4 and 5
boats. We were becoming more efficient at collecting and sorting and
the amount of rubbish collected increased to to a maximum of nearly 14000
items for a weeks collecting on the 2008 trip. We developed the Dirty
Dozen concept a group of 12 items that generally contribute over 85% of
the items collected on a single trip. The Dirty Dozen provides a good
summary of the items whose source we need to identify with an aim to
reducing their impacts.
Click on the graphs below for enlarged images
Click on the graphs below for enlarged images
In 2009 we had a very successful sponsorship drive with the Quiksilver Foundation
providing financial support and a set of clothes for all the participants
and in kind support from local businesses the Wursthaus Kitchen
and Cascade Brewery.
Unfortunately we experienced the worst patch of weather I have experienced
during a cleanup. The near constant wind, rain, hail and 5 metre
swells kept us tucked up inside Port Davey for the majority of the weeks
survey effort. As a result we were unable to access the broad open ocean
beaches we normally survey, these broad west facing beaches collect tonnes
of rubbish of all shapes and sizes. This is reflected in the graph above
which shows a 30-50% decrease in most items from the 'dirty dozen'. 2006
was similar and we were again confined to Port Davey this is also
reflected in the graphs
The 2009 trip saw us pass 50000 pieces of rubbish collected and itemised
off the beaches. We are still hoping to find the beaches spotless one
year!
2010 saw Patagonia and
Pennicott Wilderness Journeys
take over as the cleanups long term principal sponsors. Both companies are
at the forefront of Corporate Environmental Ethics, donating a percentage of
profits to worthy environmental organisations and causes. The generous
donations covered the costs of fuel and food for the 20 volunteers and
crew.
The statistics reveal 2010 and 2011 as very good years for rubbish as
over 17000 and 18000 items respectively were collected. 2011
marked the first time that small plastic pieces overtook small
rope pieces as the most common rubbish item overall. This is
reflected in what we are observing on the beaches as more and more plastic
pieces are visible on the surface and with the sand profile. During the
2011 cleanup a staggering 11000 items were collected in just one day from
one small 1.5 km stretch of coastline. 2011 also saw Pieter Van der
Woude's Odalisque
join the fleet. This meant for the first time we could take over 20
volunteers around the coast and could really cover the beach in footprints
and get every last rubbish item off the beach. The large numbers also
meant that we can finally remove all the 'temples de rope' the 300 kg+
balls of rope that litter the beaches.
2012 saw the team break through the 100,000 total item barrier collecting over
27,000 items of just 6 beaches. The fleet comprised the Velocity, the
Diamantina III and the Breaksea. The team recovered a back breaking 11,253
items from the beautiful Stephens Beach just south of Port Davey. This beach
is exposed to the highest wave energies in Australia and had not been
cleaned since 1999.
2013 was the best cleanup yet, a well oiled team and just enough breaks in
the weather to get to the expansive west facing beaches. The team of
20 managed to recover over 35000 items during the week long beachcombing
frenzy. We were still seeing an increase in the amount of rubbish
collected and started working with the Tasmanian Seafood Industry
Council and the Tasmanian Rock Lobster Fishing Association to remove and
minimise the locally derived fishing related rubbish from the beaches of
Tasmania.
We were fortunate again in 2014 to have the ongoing financial support of
Patagonia, Pennicott Wilderness Journeys and the Tasmanian Seafood Industry
Council. The funds were supplemented by a Crowd
funding project on Pozible and the annual fundraising Raffle and
Concert. I really had doubts we would be able to surpass the
effort from last year but we blitzed last years total by around 13,000
items largely thanks to a two day effort at 'Midden
Beach' which saw us remove over 27000 items from 1.5 kilometres of
shoreline. We are continuing to see a rapid increase in the amount of
plastic pieces collected each year.
In the three trips between 2015 and 2017 we collected and itemised 233381
individual items from the beaches of the south west. This was over 30000
more pieces than we had retrieved over the previous eleven trips combined.
The rubbish was changing in morphology with larger items becoming less
common due to our annual or biannual visits. Small plastics were becoming
the most common item collected and as a result the cleaning took longer and
was much harder on the back and knees.
2018 was a breakout year. We had a massive crew of around 35 on 5 large
boats, our methods had been fine tuned over the previous three years and as
a result we collected and itemised 112117 items. The team was unbelievable,
fuelled by the masterful food from Masaaki and entertained of an evening by
our cleanup band 'the miscellaneous debris'. If we could get that many
people around the coast each year the sand would be sparkling.
2019 - Sabbatical/recovery year. Dave, Matt and crew took a well
earned rest
2020 saw a cut down crew compared with 2018 with only 3 boats and 21 crew.
With limited access to the exposed coasts and a few days stuck in Port Davey
we managed 66752 Items and we came home to a covid nightmare.
Ongoing in kind support from Patagonia and the amazing fundraising work of Ula Majewski saw the 2021 cleanup flotilla return to 4 boats. The Velocity, Rumours, Nina and Cape Forestier snuck around Southwest Cape early before a large South-westerly front. After 3 days restricted to Port Davey we made our way up the coast and enjoyed a wonderful 7 days of light winds and low swells and collected nearly 100,000 items.
2022 was called off due to ongoing covid management issues and a severe downturn in the commercial fishing sector. Without the generosity of the fisherman this annual cleanup effort would not be possible.
