LiA Week 1 - Pom Pom Island
Integration onto the island and commencing work dives and turtle conservation with TRACC.
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LiA Week 2 - Pom Pom
Finishing the Advanced Open water course and continuing the work dives with TRACC.
LiA Week 4 - Pom Pom
Continuation of work dives and further development of turtle identification software.
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Kaito, from local community impacts last week to tourism- environmental impacts this week, your observations around sustainable development are valued insights! The insights regarding Styrofoam is interesting, do the longer term researchers know if this has always been the case or if in the past litter like plastic bags made up a larger contribution? I hope you have the time to work on the turtle ID this week and good luck with the rescue diver training!
Hi Ruby-Anne, thanks for the positive feedback! Unfortunately, data collection of trash types is a practice TRACC only recently has begun doing, so the researchers weren't able to give me that information. But on a more qualitative basis, I've heard in the past plastic bottles were a main polluter according to one long-term volunteer. The thing about styrofoam, is that one clean-up (which we do everyday over the same ~100m of beach for consistency in surveying purposes) can yield up to 2000 pieces, ranging from tiny pieces to larger chunks, but never a fully formed item in tact. This demonstrates the main issue with styrofoam, that it is more subsceptible to fragment into more smaller pieces and potentially be ingested by marine life, which is why we believe more restrictions should be in place for it.