Help Rebuild the Gulf of Mexico Barrier Reef

Dear Supporter,

For the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal cleanup day, Pez Maya cleaned a ninety meter stretch of the San Juan Beach. The San Juan Beach is an important turtle nesting site and we collected 329kgs of debris. This achievement contributed to our base’s long term goal of raising awareness about environmental issues and our more localised goal of continuing to undertake beach cleans, helping to create to a healthier ocean.

One of the most important objectives of GVI is to create long term sustainable conservation within our own sphere of influence and within the local community. We at Pez Maya do this through many avenues, one of which is conducting weekly beach cleans and when the International Coastal Cleanup took place, it was the perfect opportunity to expand our work. Gathering together volunteers and staff, everyone traveled to the San Juan Beach, located inside the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, and collected litter and debris for two and a half hours.

The San Juan beach is an important turtle nesting beach located an hour south of Pez Maya, in Tulum, Q. Roo Mexico. This four and a half kilometer stretch of beach is where we do our main turtle research and so far this year, we have protected 550 nests. The turtle is not only an integral part of the Meso-American Barrier Reef ecosystem, but it is also a crucial part of the local culture and tourism. For example, each year in Tulum they have a turtle festival in order to educate people on the importance of turtles and celebrate these ancient reptiles. This not only raises awareness but also brings in visitors and thus revenue for the locals. In the two and a half hours that we worked at San Juan, we amassed 329kgs of rubbish, which filled fifty bags and this was only over a 90 meter area. The waste collected was also very diverse. It ranged from toothbrushes to fishing line and we collected over fifteen hundred bottle caps (Figure below). According to the Ocean Conservancy most common item found in the International Beach Clean Up Day last year was cigarettes/cigarettes filters 1, however, we only found 1 at our beach this year. 

In 2012, more than half a million volunteers participated, collecting more than 10 million pounds of trash and covering a distance of nearly 18,000 miles.Therefore, for us at Pez Maya, this beach clean was very rewarding. Not only were we able to clean a portion of an important turtle nesting beach and accomplish satisfying and productive work, but also participated in a worldwide initiative that has been running for the last 25 years, and more importantly, it helped us contribute to the world’s Millennium Goal of ensuring environmental sustainability.

Thank you for continuing to support this project, the above could not be achieved without people like you!

All the best

Sophie Birkett

Links:

• http://www.gvi.org