November 5, 2014 (Saving Seafood) — On yesterday’s broadcast of NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show,” a panel of environmental experts assembled to discuss the effects of discarded waste on the world’s oceans. This panel also examined some of the ways in which this problem is being addressed, including how environmental education programs and the cooperation of fishermen will continue to play vital roles in ocean conservation.
Capt. Charles Moore, pollution expert and founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, is one panelist who has seen, firsthand, the devastating effects that discarded plastics and fishing tackle can have on an oceanscape. Capt. Moore has sailed through and even walked on enormous accumulations of trash in remote portions of the Pacific, which are altering ocean ecology and harming marine life.
Callum Roberts, a marine scientist and conservationist at the University of York in England, explains that plastics present perhaps the biggest challenge in the fight to keep our oceans clean. Difficult to recycle and unable to fully degrade in water, discarded plastics are broken down and consumed by birds and marine life. In addition to the harm that plastics inflict on wild animals, the consumed micro-plastics manage to work their way up the food chain and into the seafood that we consume.
People like Nancy Wallace, director of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, are exploring ways to address these issues. During a 5-week-long marine debris removal program in the northwest Hawaiian Islands, NOAA removed 50 tons of derelict fishing nets and 7 tons of plastic from Pacific waters.
In regards to long-term solutions to marine debris issues, the panelists stressed the importance of working with school groups to establishing an ocean conservation ethic early on, and cited successful programs that have gotten fishermen involved in the cleanup process.
You can learn more about the Diane Rehm Show’s discussion of these issues by listening to the following audio clips below:
Listen to Nancy Wallace, Director of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, discuss NOAA’s 5-week-long marine debris removal program in the northwest Hawaiian Islands. Ms. Wallace talks about how 57 tons of debris were removed during that 5 week period, and how NOAA plans to work with fishermen and school groups to reduce the buildup of marine debris in the future.
Listen to Callum Roberts, a marine scientist and conservationist at the University of York in England, discuss how micro plastic particles in products are making their way into our oceans and then back into our bodies through seafood.
Listen to Callum Roberts discuss the challenges of reducing marine litter on an international scale.
Listen to Charles Moore, founder of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, discuss how marine debris is changing the ecology of the ocean. Capt. Moore is also joined by marine scientist and conservationist Callum Roberts, who discusses how fishermen in Europe have partnered with the European Commission to develop a program in which plastics caught in nets, as well as recovered tackle, are brought back to shore and recycled.
Read NPR’s story and listen to the full audio from The Diane Rehm Show on WAMU 88.5