 Hello and welcome to another installment of Issues and Answers with me, your host, Jesse Leance, from the Department of Sustainable Development within the Ministry of Education, Sustainable Development, Innovation, Science, Technology and Vocational Training. This edition of Issues and Answers, we're talking the coastal and underwater cleanup that has been scheduled in St. Lucia for Saturday, September 18th, 2021, and that one activity is part of many in observance of International Coastal Cleanup 2021. I have in studio with me to speak to us about that observance as well as this specific activity from the St. Lucia National Conservation Fund, Mr. Craig Henry, CEO, and also from the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, Mr. Chris Sealy. And we have in studio, but not on set just as yet, is Mr. Donovan Brown from the St. Lucia Dive Association. He will be joining in just a moment to speak on special activity as part of the coastal and underwater cleanup, the underwater aspect of things. So first of all, good day to you, Mr. Henry, Mr. Sealy, thank you so much for being here. Sure, thank you. Wonderful. Pleasure being here. Wonderful. Just tell us, let's open with the observance, International Coastal Cleanup Day 2021. Speak to us about that observance. To you, Mr. Henry. Sure. Well, the St. Lucia National Conservation Fund, we're happy to collaborate with the Department of Sustainable Development, CIEE, and of course, the major donor to this event, which is the Caribbean Gulf Fish and Fisheries Institute. We are collaborating with them on the partnership agreement that speaks to supporting the Clean Seas Initiative. And that is really a global movement addressed to address global marine later. The GCFI is responsible for the Caribbean node of the sorry, global marine later movement. And of course, the funding that was provided would of course, go into supporting the national initiatives related to reducing single use plastics, marine later, and specifically the coastal cleanup and of course, the underwater cleanup that is scheduled to occur on September the 18th. Okay, I just want to get an overview. What is the situation like in St. Lucia in terms of from your office perspective, in terms of what our island is facing in terms of the amount of litter that, you know, we are experiencing? Well, it is something that is saddening to say that we continue to see despite efforts, because of course, there was such an initiative last year that was funded by Marcy. And what it was revealed is that there is a huge amount of marine later. We have an issue whereby even our underwater environment or marine environment is so affected and we don't see it because it's not somewhere that we go every day. And it's only people who navigate there, such as the divers and snugglers who would encounter that. But we also see the land based pollution, especially with plastics, the flooding situations that we see the clogging of our drainage, our major networks, even our rivers and so on. And that affects our marine and terrestrial biodiversity, of course. And we note that there is this concern that even with the consumption of seafood, that we are also ingesting marine plastics, microplastics. And so it is worrying in a sense to say that we continue to see that there is a rampant litter in this community disposal of garbage, but especially in terms of plastics, single use plastics. And as well, the attitude seems to have not improved. I remember decades ago, you would have had campaigns, litter campaigns that seemed to have produced some results, but we seem to have relaxed somewhat. So the Solution National Conservation Fund, we are at every turn, we would support efforts, national efforts directed at reducing the production use and consumption of single use plastics. And this was a very opportune time. And partnership to support these efforts in terms of promoting the idea of having clean seas. We definitely recognize the significance of the marine environment to the Caribbean, to small island developing states, to Saint Lucia in terms of our fisheries sector, tourism sector, and of course recreational and biodiversity protection. So in a nutshell, it's just to say that the long list of the broad range of activities that would lead to reducing the negative impact of single use plastics or in disposal plastics in our coastal and marine environment, and even in our terrestrial spaces, the SLUNCF would take the opportunity to support where it can. Okay, thank you for that. And from the Caribbean Youth Environment Network's perspective, first of all, tell us what the network just briefly is all about, and we know that the ICC has been successful in large part due to the work of volunteers. So speak to us about this task and the role of CYEN in this effort annually. Okay, great. So the Caribbean Youth Environment Network, its organization has youth led organization, and it has been in existence for more than 30 years. Saint Lucia been one of the chapters, we have 16 chapters around the Caribbean. And one of the main initiative is to help empower young persons to take a leadership role in advancement of the economy, advantage of skills and development. And one of the ways that we do that is engaging persons international coastal cleanup. As you said, international coastal cleanup is geared and led by youth, and especially volunteers worldwide. It has been around from 1986, so that's about 35 years that international coastal cleanup has been running where persons have been leading the cause of cleaning the coast, waterways and on the water. And to date, over 16 million individuals have participated in and volunteered in international coastal cleanup worldwide. We've collected over 400 million trash out of our ocean and waterways. And the reality is there is more than what we collect. Because some of the information, and this is where ocean conservancy comes in, in ensuring that the data is collected, because without the data or the information collected, the results of making policies to help deal with marine litter is not possible. And where the Caribbean youth environment and network has engaged, especially on the island of St. Lucia, youth adults from all over the island in engaging in that cleanup campaign. The cleanup campaign is done every the second week of every September, which usually falls on the 18th, but you can't engage in international coastal cleanup throughout the year. And one other ways you can do that is that we do not, we try to use a new initiative, which is a swell app. So it's digital, we know everyone has a smartphone, either you have an Android or an Apple device or a tablet. So you could simply download the app, it's called swell app, and you could populate the information. You do not need, you just need to download the app in advance before you go to your cleanup site. But the information there can be uploaded without, without internet connection. And when you get to your internet connection, then it will upload. So if you're out, you say, okay, I don't get internet service. Whenever you have the app, the information will be stored in there. And whenever you in an area where there's internet connection, you will get the information populated. One of the problems we have, as we know the pandemic and in July, we, the ocean conservancy, which is, it's, as headquarters is in Washington, DC, they engage a few coordinators around the globe to engage in what you call PPE, seeing what the, the, the different tool, the different equipments and stuff we use on a daily basis, especially now we have COVID, such as our gloves, the mask, the face shield. We realize that there are billions of that being disposed, and especially the, what you call the sanitizing wipes. And it's a matter of concern now. So apart from now collecting straws, collecting plastic bottles, collecting trash cans, now we'll face with a new litter, which is gloves, masks, face shields, and wipes. And we're asking the public or solution on the whole to participate in this cleanup. But the first thing is to take initiative of ensuring that you dispose of your trash properly. Because one of the reasons why we use these PPEs is to protect ourselves. And if we just litter them or drop them anywhere, we're actually destroying the environment even more. And this would inadvertently affect our economy. Because if our government has to send money to one another industry, such as our youth empowerment, then they'll have to be led to trash and ensuring that the litter is being collected. So ICC this year is around St. Lucia. But one of the realities is we're faced with avoiding the crowd. So we're encouraging individuals to use small family-based teams. So household-based teams to go out and do cleanup. There are a few locations that we'll engage, such as Viewfort, the La Bouchie area. We also have in the Asher area, we're also looking at the abandoned area in castries, and also in some of the areas in Souffre. But we're encouraging individuals, the public corner whole, to use the swell app and upload the information. Because the information that you're collecting there is valid, and it will help in making the decisions for protection of our marine life. Okay. Thank you for that, Mr. Sealy. So seven locations across St. Lucia. Yeah. Right. And that includes the Department of Sustainable Development's Integrated Ecosystems Management and Restoration of Forests in the Southeast Coast Project, which is financed by the Jeff, that is the Global Environment Facility, and implemented by the United Nations Environment Program. We are due for a break. When we come back, we also hear from Mr. Donovan Brown, who's from the St. Lucia Dive Association, a critical component of this upcoming cleanup is the underwater cleanup as well. So quite interesting to find out how that will be done on the 18th of September. So stay tuned for that and more coming up after this break. So excessive agrochemical use, additives, and genetically modified foods are harmful to health and the environment. Join the Good Food Revolution, grow, buy and consume organic. A message from Rice St. Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program, UNDP. Keeping hands clean is important for good health. However, after a disaster, staying clean is hard to do, especially if there is no pipe or water. Simple things you can do, stay clean and remain healthy are wash your hands with soap and clean water. If these are not available, sanitizers with alcohol are options. Wash your hands many times during the day before preparing food, eating, caring for a sick person or baby, treating a cut wound or sore. Wash hands after using the bathroom, changing diapers, caring for animals, caring for sick or injured persons after handling garbage. Washing your hands is one of the best ways to prevent illness. For further information, contact the Bureau of Health Education at telephone number 460-5349. Thank you so much for staying tuned. This is an edition of Issues and Answers on NTN, and in this edition we are talking International Coastal Cleanup 2021. We do have an activity coastal and underwater cleanup happening in St. Lucia on the 18th of September as part of activities to observe that day. We have in studio with us from the St. Lucia National Conservation Fund, Mr. Craig Henry, and we also have from the Caribbean Youth Environment Network who just went off-platform, Mr. Chrissie Lee, and before we went to break he was speaking to us about the activities that will be happening, the groups that are being targeted right now, and due to the pandemic, persons are being asked to stay within their family groups as much as possible, their household units for this cleanup day. We now have on set with us, he was in the in the studio space earlier, Mr. Donovan Brown from the St. Lucia Dive Association, and he will be speaking to us a bit about the underwater component of this cleanup activity coming up on the 18th of September. Good day to you, Mr. Brown. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Wonderful. So talk to us a little bit more about the logistics of this undertaking, underwater undertaking. Well, the undertaking will be done by a number of dive operators on island from Soufraire in the south, all the way up to Lespoir in the north. We'll be participating with this. And again this year we're getting some funding from the National Conservation Fund. Last year we got major sponsorship from massive stores, and they provided personal hygiene stuff for the participants. They will this year provide gloves and mesh bags to collect the debris from under the ocean. And it's collected. We're going out, do our dives, collect the stuff, bring it back. Earlier someone was asking if we weigh the trash. Last year when we did it, I'm not quite sure if those weighed correct, but I know we collected it and the solid waste management collected it. I'm not sure if they weighed it, but we had over 40 bags last year. We did do a part of Soufraire, which I'm told this year is the main year we'll be going to. And from that year alone, we got almost 20 bags of massive bags of garbage. I think what this brings, especially to us as divers, home, is that I don't think persons on land recognize that everything they dump in the gullies or in the ocean ends up in places there shouldn't be sometimes. We go diving every day and sometimes we wish we could say to the person, please don't throw this away. Don't throw it in the ocean because it doesn't help. Plastics are the biggest concern now. And as Craig said earlier, microplastics and the fish we eat is becoming something of a lot of concern. The scientists are telling us that fish are consuming more plastic now. So when they do their tests on it, they'll find a lot of that in there. But aside from that, it's ugly. Our friend spoke earlier and he said that the protective gear is, yes, they're ending up under the water and in alarming numbers now, especially around the resort areas. Yeah. But on almost all the diversites from Soufraire, all the way to Capman, to Cap the Point, we find these things on the water. For us as divers, it's a good time. We enjoy doing this because it's our opportunity to clean up areas that get polluted. We have some areas that we can guarantee when we go there. We find lots of plastic bottles. The ocean seems to bring them together and deposit them in certain areas. And we go there and clean these areas. But the message I would like to bring across to everyone is try and put here later in a bin. We need to try very hard because most everything ends up on the water. Refrigerators, televisions, bicycles. People just discard them because out of sight for them is fine. Yeah, it's out of mind. But we see it. Our job is to take locals and visitors on the water. And sometimes you feel a bit embarrassed with the things you find there. I was about to ask, what are the implications for business, for your commerce? But the good thing, or maybe it's a bad thing, it happens all over the world. And most of our guests, they themselves are very conscious. So they will pick up yesterday, for example, the other guy, he and his wife was out with us. And he came up from a dive with two bottles, two plastic bottles in his hand. His wife actually was just learning to dive. So she said, darling, why? He said, no, no, no. Anywhere he goes and he picks them up. And that is what is happening to the diving fraternity. Anywhere divers go and they find rubbish, they'll take it up. So it's a little less embarrassing. But for me, it's not so much embarrassment. It's what it represents. Literature is never good. And it represents a bad habit that we need to work on. Put your garbage in a bin. Let your collectors take it away and bring it to the landfill or something. Tomorrow, Saturday, I should say, represents a day when we have about 40 divers already listed to go down. And we have a number of locals who are also divers, but they don't belong to dive operations. They have also pledged that they want to join us in this venture on Saturday. And we're looking forward to that. They're the land component this year. So most of the operators will also utilize their staff and other personnel to clean up the beaches and surrounding areas. Recently, there seemed to be a serious influx of plastic bottles and beaches. And I don't know what caused that. But almost every beach you walk on, every stretch of beach, there's a massive amount of plastic bottles all over. The Replus guys have been doing good with their stuff. But I wish they'd take dirty bottles too. They only take clean bottles. So there are people who extract the clean ones and leave the dirty ones, unfortunately. But we also, we are going to deal with that portion of the cleanup also. So it's not just on the water, it's not just a bagel. We're going to do on the land, on the beach also. Okay. And I just wanted to ask also, what, well, you can't speak from a scientific perspective, but what has your observation been over the years in terms of the correlation between our coral reef, we know climate change and other effects have a role to play. But what have you seen in the last decade or so, two decades happening based on the influx of litter ending up in our water? Last year, when we did the cleanup, we did a documentary of it. And one of the highlights of that documentary was a bicycle. Really, the rubbers on the wheel had, bam, barrel sponges, underwater sponge going on it. And it, a lot of people found it, you know, that a lovely photograph. But what it represents is that everything you throw in the ocean, the ocean, our way of integrating it and using it. And sometimes not positively. I'm not a scientist, so I can't tell you what the negative effect was of that sponge going on a piece of rubber. But we do know that these things are not good for the ocean. Again, I can't emphasize it more. I wish our habits would change. That's the main thing. Yes, the cleanup is good. Yes, we're going to do it. We're going to do it every year. And the other unfortunate thing is that every year we find more rubbish, not less. And that is a real unfortunate part of this operation. Back to our conservation fund, talk to us about what Saturday, September 18th means in the whole effort overall, because what is happening annually and what will Saturday mean for the effort in terms of perhaps recruiting more regulars in the cleanup process? Sure. And I'd like to thank Donovan for speaking to the marine aspect and even now Mr. Silas speaking toward the terrestrial cleanup, the coastal cleanup. And I'd also like to emphasize there's some element of personal responsibility that while we are having these coastal, these cleanup activities that we cannot overemphasize that, you know, is a personal responsibility to take care of our own garbage to dispose of properly and so on and so forth. And again, highlight that given that we are in the COVID context, there are two issues. One with the indiscriminate disposal of the PPE, the protective equipment. But as well, the fact that if we're having such activities that, you know, folks can observe the social distancing protocols, I'd like to encourage, even if we are not in your particular community, given that St. Lucia is a coastal island and so on and so forth, you could organize with your family and your friends to do some coastal cleanups as well. Perhaps those who are more inclined could take photos and see and give evidence of, you know, what they've done in their particular areas. I'd like to highlight as well that, you know, there are certain facts that speak to 73 percent of beach litter is just plastic. And so this is why there's this focus, enormous focus on getting rid of plastics and reducing the footprint related to single-use plastics globally. And I'd just like to plug in another very essential element is that plastic bugs kill 100,000 marine animals annually. And again, given the context that we are in, where we depend, we have a very vibrant fishery sector. We have our diet, many of us consume seafood and so on and so forth. We have to be concerned at the levels of plastics that we're finding in our marine environment. And of course, you can imagine that, you know, fishing and marine animals eating or ingesting microplastics because it looks like food to them. They can't discriminate and what's the implication for us. So in all of that, I'd like to say that the Solutional National Conservation Fund, we stand by our partners and we're always willing to collaborate in areas that would support the protection and conservation of our critical ecosystems. And given the critical issue of plastics pollution and of course, biodiversity protection are all enmeshed in the symbolic activities that we are having on Saturday, September 17th. Again, remind the public that there is an element of personal responsibility, whereas we can have a thousand cleanups for the next thousand years. It also means that the fact that we will be continuing to have these cleanup exercises is just a reflection of our own personal failures and in their election or duty. So I'd like to thank the Diver Association and the Department of Sustainable Development for being excellent partners. And it will be a remiss of me not to thank as well my staff. And of course, GCFI for supporting this important venture. Okay, we're running out of time. But just to ask, how could Pusans get in contact with the National Conservation Fund if they want to be a closer part, more than just their community or family relegated activity, but be part of the organization? Well, you could visit our website at www.SLUNCF.org for more information, not just about the coastal cleanup exercises, but the conservation fund in general. What we do is the scope of operations and the opportunities that there are for community livelihoods, community work and collaborations in general. Okay, wonderful. I'd like to thank you all three gentlemen for coming in to speak to us about the upcoming activity and also to really layer the reality of the plight that our coast and our underwater environment are facing with the use of indiscriminate disposal of plastics in our environment. Of course, Mr. Craig Henry, St. Lucia National Conservation Fund, Mr. Chris Sealy from the Caribbean Youth Environment Network and Mr. Donovan Brown from the St. Lucia Dive Association. Thank you once again. We invite you to be part of the undertaking in observance of International Coastal Cleanup 2021 in St. Lucia. We have the coastal and underwater cleanup in whatever way you can. If you want to be closer, closely involved with the work of the CYEN, the NCF and the Dive Association, you can contact them, but you can do your own in and around your community, just relegated to your own household. See what you could pick up, see what you can do on your own because we're all affected by this situation. Let's help to make our environment a much pleasant one to live in. So that's all we have for the underwater cleanup. Thank you so much for watching. This has been another edition of Issues and Answers. My name is Jesse Leon, signing off for now. Do stay tuned for more programming from NTN. Goodbye.