PANAJI: “The area around the islands off Mormugao harbour should be converted into marina parks to protect marine life,” suggested local and international scuba diving enthusiasts, who participated in an unique underwater beach cleaning drive on Sunday at Grande Island.
Venkat Charloo, of Barracuda Diving India, said, “All Goans should fight for making these islands into marina parks that will not only help preserve the ecosystem on land, as well as the underwater marine life”.
Officials from national institute of oceanography, local scuba divers, scuba diving students and nature lovers got together to clean up the beach – both on shore and underwater – as part of Earth day 2014 and International Clean-up Day.
“We are trying to send a message to the community that we need to keep the ocean clean because ourvery own survival is dependent on it. These kind of drives create awareness among the people,” Charloo added.
Frequented by divers and picknickers, the area around Grande Island is getting increasingly polluted. “Over the years, hundreds of kilos of garbage have been collected from the island. Today, we collected around 30 big bags of plastic bottles, beer bottles, footwear, discarded fishing nets, etc,” informed Charloo, adding that the litter underground consisted of similar elements. The barracuda team of volunteers segregated the waste into plastics, metals, glass and thermocol.
Goa has rich diversity of corals and marine life around Grande Island and the cleanup drive is aimed at creating awareness about preserving this underwater wealth. Charloo admitted that divers get a first hand visual of the effects of marine debris on our delicate ecosystem. “We request private operators in the tourism industry to make tourist aware that they should not litter the place and take back what they bring to the picnic spot,” he said.
Sidharth Kuncalienker, who was part of cleaning drive, said, “Being a nature lover, this is my small gesture of ‘giving back’ to our planet “.
Pushpita Singh, a student, volunteered to be a part of the drive so that she could help clean up the beach and also set an example for others.
Another student, Dana Cardoso, who was also invloved in the clean-up drive said, “I hope that people realize the negtive impact of their actions of throwing garbage on the beach. We should take responsibility of keeping our environment clean”.
