By José Antonio Perez
The Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans (CEDO) launched an intense beach clean-up campaign during the first week of November in an effort to heal coastlines while raising environmental awareness.
On November 4th, members from the community of Puerto Lobos in the municipality of Caborca, joined in the international Beach Clean-Up event, organized annually by The Ocean Conservancy, by removing three tons of waste.
Nearly 30 people, including fishermen and their families, took part in the Puerto Lobos clean-up effort along a hectare of the Puerto Lobos Mangrove, coordinated by the Coastal and Wetlands Intercommunity Group of the Puerto Peñasco-Puerto Lobos Biological Fishing Corridor, Caborca Neighborhood Committee, as well as CEDO staff, and from Public Services of Caborca.
As an immediate result from this effort, the community of Puerto Lobos is organizing to hold similar clean-up efforts on at least a monthly basis by focusing on different parts of the area, and particularly the Mangrove.
These actions seek to obtain data as to activities that produce waste while further analyzing ways for communities – including visitors, businesses, the public, and governmental officials – to address issues of sea pollution. Collaboration from the community, organizations, committees, and the municipality are needed to achieve these goals.
Similarly, on November 5th, within the framework of The Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Clean-up Day, a clean-up effort spread across the beach from Playa Hermosa to Sandy Beach in Puerto Peñasco.
The Peñasco clean-up, organized by the Puerto Peñasco Clean Beach Committee together with CEDO and the Municipal Office of Ecology and Sustainable Development, brought together nearly 300 volunteers who from 8 am – 10 am collected approximately 300 kilos of trash from the beach.
The International Coastal Clean-up Day, begun in 1987, now takes place in nearly 100 countries in seeking to join in cleaning up coasts across the globe.
