Marine conservation: Creating a local group in the time of Covid19
Until the last couple of months, I have been spending more than my fair share in travels. I attended overseas ocean conferences and participated in global discussions about the best way to conserve marine ecosystems and how to support the blue economy. The focus was global.
But a couple of months ago the world had to come to a stop. A total stop of most human activity, all around the world. Lockdown had been installed in many countries, in an aim to reduce the spread of the Covid19 virus.
While we all focus our life within our respective local area, first staying indoor and progressively going out for a walk, we all gained an increased appreciation of our surrounding. We now value the nature we have the joy to appreciate, locally.
In my case I am very lucky. I have access to an amazing nature, everyday. A vast range of colourful and beautifully noisy native birds, marsupials. I also have the coast at close reach, with fishes to share my swim with and quite clear waters.
However, I noticed quite some changes in the recent years. For a start, both in the abundance of birds but also of insects, which may be related. While I am quite pleased to not have seen any spider in my house this year. Generally summer is the time where encounters with spiders are common, including with large huntsman (quite timid spiders that won’t attack you if left alone but still very large and scary) or occasional redbacks, on the balcony, and the inoffensive garden spiders (creating large webs during the night) . This year they have all disappeared along with the bees and the colourful dragonflies and butterflies. Maybe this is due to the fact that there are less flowers in the garden; but I believe it is more likely due to the use of strong chemicals, in the adjacent natural reserve. Or just a loss of balance in the ecosystem.
The beaches on the park are also inundated by microplastics. They are not always visible in the water, but somehow, a couple of beaches on the bay, have qute a few signs of plastic pollution by microplastic, especially after the rain.
This lead to the refection that all these beaches, even if most of them are located on supposedly protected areas, are under the pressure of pollution. There is no doubt that the herbicide, largely used in the reserve to control weeds, is also directly going into the water.
In my area there is a root movement emerging, with the aim to foster a more sustainable community and Australia. A couple of months ago, a new local MP was elected, with a strong ethos of climate change. Many people are rallying to take actions to have more laws implemented and pro climate change actions at government level. Also, some local movements are getting created to encourage people to have solar panels on their roof. Australia has one of the highest penetration of individual solar panel solution on roofs and we hope that the trend will extend even further.
On the marine side, I decided to form a new group of marine conservation for the North Shore of Sydney. The aim is to work with the different councils and asses what they have in place at the moment. Then to work at leveraging the actions of one council with the other and to form a group of people to advocate and then act as necessary.
It is a very good time to do so as all the people that are generally overseas (generally a large proportion of the population) are locally bound and may have taken conscious of the importance of the nature in the time of Covid19.
Moreover a few movements are being created around renewable energy by some friends and I intend to capitalise on their dynamic too. It is the perfect time to start to take action.
At the beginning it may be just a few phone calls as the lockdown is still partially in place with a lot of restrictions about meeting people and gathering. But I believe this could have an interesting impact….