How it all started: Marine Debris Challenge 2016!

Between 22nd February to 22nd April 2016 (Earth Day), our co-founders, together with a local NGO - SYAH Seychelles, took up the Marine Debris Challenge 2016 hosted by Positive Change For Marine Life (PCFML), an NGO based in Australia. Dubbed ‘Team Seychelles’ in the challenge, Karine and Zara organised weekly clean ups across the Seychelles islands to raise awareness about the impacts of marine debris and to engage people to take action to prevent debris reaching the oceans. 

Having previously organised beach clean ups under the umbrella of ‘A Seychelles Free From Plastic Bags’ campaign, the Marine Debris Challenge provided the opportunity to conduct educational clean ups on a bigger scale. The two-month exercise, which was made possible by the generous donation of the British High Commission in Seychelles and other sponsors as well as the assistance of numerous NGOs, businesses and hotels, covered beaches in Cap Ternay, Bel Ombre, Anse Royale, Beau Vallon as well as on Praslin, Cousin Island Special Reserve and Silhouette. The clean up of Beau Vallon beach, one of the most frequented beaches on Mahe, was held in collaboration with Hunt, Deltel & Co. Ltd., and saw the participation of a record number of 246 participants from organisations in the private and public sectors, hotels and schools!

7 clean ups, 4 islands, 300+ people and 3+ tonnes of debris later, it was observed that clean ups presented an ideal opportunity to combine education and action on marine debris. Having observed that the majority of debris collected on clean ups on Mahe and Praslin appeared to be of local origin, Zara and Karine decided that any fight against marine debris had to start at home! The findings made it clear that whilst marine debris is a global problem that will need global action to tackle,  local debris found on the inner islands was a local problem that could, and needed to, be solved locally.

This spurred the formation of The Ocean Project Seychelles in November 2016 to continue the fight to keep our oceans clean!