Taking Care Of Fiji’s Beautiful Marine Environment

Captain Cook Cruises Fiji has recently launched a new environmental initiative onboard the MV Reef Endeavour, the Ocean Ambassador Program, to help stop plastic pollution in remote Fiji and look after and sustain the beautiful Fijian environment.

The Ocean Ambassador initiative focuses on cleaning up the plastic waste from the remote beaches and villages visited on Captain Cook Cruises three, four, seven and eleven-night cruises, and at the same time educating villagers, crew and passengers collecting valuable data about the types of waste found in the Fiji Islands.

Third deck cadet, Samisoni, has been appointed Reef Endeavour’s ‘Ocean Ambassador’ and will lead the program, working alongside onboard Marine Biologist Janet.

According to Jackie Charlton, Managing Director of Captain Cook Cruises Fiji, “Plastic pollution is a real threat to our oceans and we have decided to act, to help clean up plastic waste on the remote islands we visit. It’s hard for some of the more remote villages to deal with plastic waste, so we’ve put our hands up to provide this service.”

Guests are encouraged to help staff pick up the rubbish at each beach and after the rubbish has been collected it is sorted and counted and the data is then uploaded to a central database managed by Tangaroa Blue.

Tangaroa Blue runs the Australian Marine Debris Initiative: a network of volunteers, communities and organisations that contribute data about rubbish collected during clean-ups, then work on solutions to stop the flow of litter at the source, providing – for government bodies and manufacturers – data that shows them where specific types of plastic waste have been found, so they can locate the source and find solutions.

According to Marine Biologist, Janet, Captain Cook Cruises Fiji has been very successful with its Ocean Ambassador program.

“Samisoni, our Ocean Ambassador, collected 75kg of rubbish on our first cruise, and has, over the past month  led beach clean-ups on Brothers Beach, Blue Lagoon, Yaqeta, Monu, Monuriki and Sacred Islands on three separate Yasawa Island cruises.  But Yagasa, in the remote Lau group of islands, broke all records. In one day our passengers and crew collected a whopping 86 kg of rubbish.” Explains Janet.

“After each clean-up, our OA, 3^rd cadet Samisoni, reports to me and I send them through to head office, where the data is uploaded to the Tangaroa Blue database.

The passengers also love getting involved and helping with the clean-up which is great to see.” Continues Janet

This is the first initiative of its kind in Fiji and will start to build invaluable data on marine litter issues in the islands, especially so because Captain Cook visits so many different (and often remote) regions in Fiji.

Captain Cook Cruises Fiji operate three, four, seven and eleven-night accommodated cruises around the Yasawa and remote North and Lau groups of Fiji. They also operate a full day Tivua Island day cruise and a dinner cruise, both departing from Port Denarau.

For further information and bookings visit www.captaincookcruisesfiji.com

For further information and bookings, please contact Captain Cook Cruises on T: +61 9126 8160 or from within Australia: 1300 To Fiji (86 3454), Email: fiji@captaincookcruisesfiji.com  or visit www.captaincookcruisesfiji.com

For media enquiries contact: Brooke Tolar, Captain Cook Cruises Fiji, M: 0411 553 246,

Email: pr@captaincookcruisesfiji.com   for high res images click on http://www.captaincookcruisesfiji.com/fiji-images/default.htm

(Source: Captain Cook Cruises Press Release 02 January 2018)

The post Taking Care Of Fiji’s Beautiful Marine Environment appeared first on Discover the South Pacific.

Source: Blog