Keep the oceans clean
The message is as simple as it is loud and clear: ‘Keep The Oceans Clean!’ That will be the environmental battle cry of the Volvo Ocean Race when the boats launch into the Mediterranean during one of the world’s toughest sailing challenges.
Using the enormous global reach of the nine-month offshore yacht race, the Keep the Oceans Clean! Project will stress the urgency of cleaning up our increasingly toxic, litter-choked seas for future generations to avoid a global environmental catastrophe. Eighty per cent of marine pollution comes from land-based activities and the Volvo Ocean Race initiative will aim to press home the responsibility all societies have to ensure that our lifestyles cease to harm the oceans. Almost everything humans throw away can find its way into the sea unless it’s disposed of properly.
In the last 60 years, marine organisms from microscopic plankton to whales and polar bears have been contaminated with man-made chemicals now embedded in the food chain. Immense damage has been caused by oil spills and run-off from land, as well as agricultural fertilizers seeping into coastlines and suffocating marine life. And then there’s our everyday domestic litter – millions of tons of it. Plastic rubbish, which breaks down very slowly, is a major problem, partly because it is often mistaken for food by marine animals. The stomachs of dead fish and birds have been found to contain plastic bags, bottles, lighters and contraceptives, among much else. In many parts of the world, including the Mediterranean, sewage flows untreated, or undertreated, into our seas.
Keep The Oceans Clean! is working with Skeleton Sea, a group of surfers and artists who use beach-trash and flotsam to create sculptures and installations with a powerful environmental message. One of the members of the group will be at each stopover as an artist in residence, leading a community beach clean and using the material gathered to create an ocean related sculpture at each port. The group has produced a hard-hitting Albatross film about the great harm being done by plastic debris in the oceans. The film will be shown at all 10 host ports within an inflatable Dome providing a hub for ocean-related activities during the race. In the 2008-2009 race, almost four million visitors passed through the race villages at the stopover ports and this time the figures are likely to be even greater. This should ensure a huge collective audience for the film and the Keep the Oceans Clean! message.
The project is being developed and co-ordinated by Jacqui Smith, a graduate in marine resource management who has held a passion for the oceans since her earliest years growing up in Australia. “We will be using the excitement and adventure of the race to send a powerful message about caring for the ocean,” says Jacqui. “By engaging the sailors, who are getting first-handexperience of parts of nature most of us will never see close up, we hope to promote the importance of the oceans.” The initiative will also link up with local community groups – including schools, conservation projects and other nongovernmental organizations – at each stopover port with the aim of leaving an enduring legacy in the local area. The race has chosen an albatross mascot called ‘Wisdom’ for the Keep The Oceans Clean! Project. Seventeen of the world’s 22 albatross species are globally threatened with extinction and tens of thousands of albatrosses are killed each year by long-line fishing. Baited hooks attached to lines stretching up to 80 miles are designed to catch vast numbers of large fish but they can catch albatrosses as well. When the hooks are still visible near the sea’s surface, the foraging birds spot them and try to grab the bait before it sinks. Many others die through the consumption of plastic, which either chokes them to death or fills their stomachs so that there is no room for food. The greater part of the plastic floating on the world’s seas has found its way there from the land – and this is one of the key messages that the initiative will be trying to impress. “We will be trying to open people’s eyes to the important role the ocean plays in our lives,” adds Jacqui. “No matter where we live, the ocean is instrumental to our general wellbeing, and we need to realize that our actions affect its health.” For Jacqui, the initiative is an opportunity to make a positive difference. “We need to bridge the gap between science and public awareness in order to create positive change. Keep The Oceans Clean! will be doing exactly that with the help of the giant global platform provided by the Volvo Ocean Race.”
For more information on the Keep the Oceans Clean! Initiative, go to www.volvooceanrace.com/keeptheoceansclean
To find out more about Skeleton Sea go to www.skeletonsea.com
The Volvo Ocean Race also continues to support Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the largest wildlife conservation charity in Europe, and Birdlife International, a worldwide network of over 100 partner organizations, with their Save the Albatross campaign. They work together as a global team called the Albatross Task Force, educating fishermen, both onshore and at sea, to spread the message about life-saving techniques to keep albatrosses away from baited hooks. A percentage of proceeds from the official Volvo Ocean Race game and albatross mascot replica, Wisdom, will be donated to the Save the Albatross campaign.
For further information, please visit www.rspb.org.uk/albatross
Follow every minute of the Volvo Ocean Race on www.volvooceanrace.com
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