We are delighted to announce our recent success at the 41st Keep Australia Beautiful Victoria Tidy Towns & Cities Sustainability Awards. We were honoured to win the Litter Category award with our Let’s Strain the Drains project!
This October, our 5th Great Barrier Reef Clean-Up took place, with the Tangaroa Blue team, stakeholder and partner groups, and local community members banding together to clean-up the Great Barrier Reef coastline. There were a variety of clean-ups run, from multi-day clean-up events up in the Torres Strait to community-led events at local waterways, all focusing on removing marine debris and collecting important data to add to the Australian Marine Debris Initiative (AMDI) Database.
Chili Beach is located about 700km north of Cairns, within the Kutini-Payamu (Iron Range) National Park. It is a place of incredible cultural significance and biodiversity, and is full of diverse wildlife, amazing landscapes, and gorgeous sunrises. The park is also of international significance as it contains the largest remaining area of lowland rainforest in Australia. However, unfortunately the beaches are heavily impacted by marine debris from locations far and wide.
The 2023 Great Nurdle Hunt brought together over 30 participants at Plane Spotters Beach in Botany, Sydney, and 90 participants at Westgate Park along the Yarra River in Melbourne.
Pennefather is renowned for its natural beauty, yet it faces a pressing environmental issue โ the accumulation of plastic bottles, thongs, commercial fishing equipment, and oil containers. We are incredibly grateful to the Napranum Traditional Owners’ elders, Nanum Wungthim Land and Sea Rangers , and the wonderful families who invited Tangaroa Blue to support the first-ever Pennefather Marine Debris Research and Plastic Recovery Initiative.
On September 21st to 29th, 2023, a team of seven volunteers and one coordinator set off from Cairns to clean not just 5 Beaches, but as it happened, nearly 7! After two days of hard driving, they camped at Archer River and crossed Jardine River where they were met by the rest of the team who travelled from the Torres Strait Islands.
Our annual WA Beach Clean-up is back for another year! Our WA Project Coordinators are working to increase the beaches and waterways covered and are both really looking forward to connecting to the communities that care for the wild shores of Western Australia over the 13th-15th of October.
Project ReCon tracks and retrieves first deadly and destructive ghost gear 4 kms off the coast from Weipa The first ghost gear has been tracked by Tangaroa Blueโs Project ReCon team and retrieved by the Nanum Wungthim Land & Seaย Management Rangers, 4 kms off the coast of Weipa. With the support of Satlink, the Project ReCon team repurposed an echo sounder buoy, which was recovered during a recent clean-up, to track and monitor the 3 tonnes of discarded commercial fishing
Article from 06/09/2023 A small volunteer team joined WA Project Coordinator Casey for an additional few days on Cocos (Keeling) Islands at the beginning of her Indian Ocean Territories voyage. The crew were greeted by crystal clear water, white sandy beaches and shallow coral reef systems teeming with life. It was really wonderful to reconnect with the community, to learn about the incredible work the Parks Australia, Cocos Marine Care, the Shire of Cocos (Keeling) Islands and locals are doing
Accompanied by a team of 14 dedicated volunteers, Casey Woodward, WA Project Coordinator for Tangaroa Blue, embarked on a remarkable journey spanning 2600km to reach the remote haven of Christmas Island in the heart of the Indian Ocean. This island, a supremely biodiverse region of Australia’s Indian Ocean Territories (IOT), has been a recurring destination for Tangaroa Blue since 2017.
