Dive Against Debris®
Bristol, UK
Scuba divers around the globe are taking a stand against marine debris by engaging in ongoing, local protection and monitoring of their local dive sites. Dive Against Debris®, Project AWARE®’s global citizen-science programme empowers scuba divers to remove marine debris from the ocean and report data on the types, quantities, and locations of materials collected. Through Dive Against Debris, volunteer divers are helping improve the health of ocean ecosystems and provide valuable information about underwater debris to help inform policy change. Through partnerships and successful alliances, Project AWARE is committed to working towards developing proactive and achievable/realistic measures to address the marine debris issue and prevent debris items, including plastics, from entering the ocean. Since the inception of Dive Against Debris in 2011, more than 50,000 divers have conducted almost 8,000 surveys, reporting and removing over 1.3 Million waste items from the seafloor. Information collected by scuba divers provides a unique underwater view into the growing problem of ocean trash. Dive Against Debris surveys not only provide an immediate relief to undersea habitats and marine life through the direct actions of participating dive volunteers, the data submitted contributes to long-term solutions by building the evidence necessary to advocate for change. Comparatively speaking, information regarding land and surface debris is widely available but underwater data is lacking. Dive Against Debris aims to fill this gap – providing quantitative data to show the true extent of the global marine debris crisis. The data yielded bridges the gap to an issue that has been previously disregarded as out of sight, out of mind. By sharing the data with partners and making it available for all to see online through the Dive Against Debris interactive online map, Project AWARE and its dedicated army of debris activists and citizen scientists are working toward solutions that will ultimately prevent debris entering the ocean in the first place. To volunteer and conduct Dive Against Debris surveys, join an action or start your own: http://www.projectaware.org/actionmap
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