Mark Johnson LBIS
During our last LBImpactS Student Stories, we heard from our team undertaking Biodiversity related work with the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation at Ile aux Aigrettes to aid with UN Sustainable Development Goal number 15 Life on Land. Today, our Lagoon Clean-Up Team will recount their experience working on SDG 14 Life Below Water. During Impacts Week 2024 Le Bocage International School students designed and delivered 32 projects across Mauritius and beyond all related to addressing various sustainable development issues facing our Island. These are their stories.
Lagoon Clean-Up Team
Mauritius is well known for the mesmerising reefs surrounding the island. Unfortunately, pollution has increased immensely over the years as people irresponsibly discard their rubbish at both the beach and on land that will eventually find its way to the ocean with heavy rains and flooding. This pollution is significantly affecting the marine life that lives in our lagoons and beyond. In the hope of raising awareness and helping to address this situation Le Bocage Impacts Week gave us the opportunity to utilise our diving experience in order to design a project that would aim to remove pollution from within the lagoon itself.
LBIS Impacts Lagoon Clean Up Diving Team
33 students led by Tarini Ramdhary, Shriya Purmanan and Jeevitha Soobrayen, came together as a team to plan a week’s worth of activities contributing to clearing the debris of the ocean, whilst seizing this as a learning opportunity with the guidance of Ms. Sarah Albert, their advisor. Mr Emmanuel Cundasamy, Mr Kendy Chokeepermal, Ms Choormita Ramautar and Mr Tamir Husam Mohamed.
LBImpactS Diving and Snorkelling Teams
We started by separating the groups of students, classifying them as divers or snorkelers. Divers were given the opportunity to dive twice throughout the week with Bigorno Dive Centre. On our first dive, we were shocked at what we found on the bed of the lagoon. We found fishing lines entangled around corals harming them, we found an abandoned fishing trap (about 1m-square approx, weighing approximately 7.5kg). It was rusty, and harmful for the surrounding marine life. We had to use a lifting bag, which used the air-expansion system, to remove it.
Lifting an abandoned fishing trap…
Snorkelers were tasked with diving into the lagoon to remove underwater trash and pollutants, aiming to restore the health of the marine environment.
Unfortunately, due to bad weather conditions, it became unsafe for us to continue water-based activities, forcing us to cancel the remaining diving and snorkelling excursions. Consequently, we shifted our focus to a beach clean-up. The team then concentrated on removing litter and debris from the shoreline, ensuring the beach was clean and preventing the trash from washing back into the lagoon. Despite the weather challenges and only having one day of snorkelling, our efforts still made a significant positive impact on the environment.
We recorded our data on the International Coastal Clean-up forms, a programme tracking the amount of rubbish collected during the beach clean ups world-wide. The end result of our efforts saw the removal of cigarette buds, beer cans, fishing line, fishing traps, varied types of plastic, and diapers. We also counted the number of cigarette butts we collected in a 30m-square area, which truly shocked us; there were over 820 in that area only – now imagine the amount we had collected for the entire beach.
Cigarettes not just a deadly habit, but a huge pollutant too
The entire team is proud of the Impact we made towards the beaches and lagoons surrounding our beloved island, and we hope to continue making a change!