24 September 2006

Marine Debris in Alaska

I attended the Alaska Sea Grant conference, Alaska's Fishing Communities ~ Harvesting the Future, in Anchorage this last week. The conference was sponsored in part by NOAA Fisheries and one poster presentation struck me as being something I would like to share. The Marine Conservation Alliance (MCA) has established a foundation focused in part on addressing the problems associated with marine debris on our beaches.

The MCA Foundation has started a website at http://www.mcafoundation.org/ that will hopefully go live soon. The foundation first started receiving funds from NOAA to remove marine debris in Alaska during 2004. Work is accomplished by cooperating with fishermen, local communities, and Native governments.

The stated goals of the MCA Foundation effort are:

  • Cleaner beaches
  • Removal of hazards to navigation
  • Wildlife protection

  • A searchable database of known debris locations available to vessels of opportunity that may be able to pick the material up

I have written about the problems associated with Marine Plastic Pollution and Marine Plastic Pollution Resources at Suite101.

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posted by Harbormaster at 13:56

1 Comments:

Anonymous Nancy said...

Wildlife protection is also big issue where I'm from (Cape Cod, MA). For some reason, the piping plover is the Cape's 'poster bird' for threatened wildlife--I hear more about that species than any other.

Cleaner beaches is also important, (I often participated in beach clean-ups as a kid--much like convicts do along the interstates...) but I think the wildlife issues get more emphasis because birds and seals and such just look cuter on the front page of the Times than discarded 6-pack rings entangled with seaweed do.

04 October, 2006 21:51  

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