The Tribune

APRIL is Coastal Awareness Month and the Ministry of Tourism and its coastal awareness partners have got their support off to a flying start with a beach clean up.

Students of Kingsway Academy were enlisted along with students visiting from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) to conduct the cleanup at Coral Harbour.

Benjamin Pratt, senior manager in the Ministry of Tourism’s Sustainable Tourism Unit, said the collaboration highlighted how important the coastline was to the Bahamas. “We can not ignore the coast because it is very important to us,” he said.

“In the first instance, from an economic perspective, this is where our tourism infrastructure is. Where are our hotels? They are on the beaches. Where do most of our visitors come and they want to enjoy? It’s the beaches. So it is important from an economic perspective.”

Mr Pratt said the beaches were also important from a social perspective as Bahamians visit them for recreation. For generations, he said, Bahamians have lived along or close to the coastline.

Beach cleanups must remain an ongoing process, Mr Pratt said.

“The Bahamas comprises over 100,000 square miles of beaches. With all that real estate, the need arises from time to time to clean it up.

“So several years ago, in fact more than 10 years ago, the Ministry of Tourism, through its Sustainable Tourism Department, has been working with Coastal Awareness, a programme that focuses attention on several areas.”

The campaign focuses on eradicating invasive species, sustainable coastal development and cleanups, Mr Pratt said.

The cleanup with UTC was spearheaded by Dolphin Encounters, a Coastal Awareness Month partner.

Dolphin Encounters’ Beach Buddies programme enlists visiting college students three times a year to help clean Bahamian beaches. This year’s list of colleges included groups from UTC and Iowa State University.

Linzi Knowles-Belton of the Beach Buddies programme said the cleanup has a lasting effect on the high school and college students who take part.

“We are helping the community by kids coming out and cleaning the trash and being proud of their environment,” she said. “Trash hurts animals that are near the beach as well as animals that are in the ocean.”

Ms Knowles-Belton pointed out that Beach Buddies does a cleanup with local schools about two times a month.

She said her organisation’s largest event each year is the International Coastal Cleanup in September.

Whenever Dolphin Encounters organises a cleanup, all trash collected is identified and documented. The documentation is shared with the Ocean Conservancy.