A group of University of Tasmania divers have been spending their weekends hurling hundreds of kilograms of debris from high use jetties along the Tamar River.
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Conserve Our Neighbours in the Tamar is an initiative set up by PhD student Masa Tatsumi, thanks to funding assistance from Northern Resource Management North, to clean-up the Tamar and create community awareness about its ecosystem.
On Saturday, April 9, eight divers held a clean-up at York Cove, George Town, to remove debris, collect data and educate local community members about the initiative.
Mr Tatsumi said they hauled around 300kilograms of debris which included shopping trolleys, bottles, cans and fishing gear during their 30-minute dive at the site.
CONT has discovered some very alarming items in the water since the dives started three years ago.
“The most surprising thing was a dirtbike, and shopping trolleys, because it wasn’t a shopping trolley it was piles of shopping trolleys,” Mr Tatsumi said.
CONT runs three-to-four dives each year at locations that are predominately used by fishermen and boaters, like Kelso, George Town, Cove Point and Beauty Point.
“I think we at least pulled out 12 shopping trolleys, easy, in total and lots of bikes and fishing gear.”
The areas with the most visitors tend to have the most rubbish so CONT tries to dive at busier locations once every 12 months to compare debris levels.
The CONT program was initiated after NRM North coastal coordinator Emma Williams spoke at he Maritime College.
Ms Williams encouraged students with environmental ideas to get in contact with NRM North for funding and support.
While Mr Tatsumi was completing his undergraduate studies he would gather a small group of friends and hold small clean-up dives around the Tamar.
When he began his PhD in Marine Ecology he realised he would be living in Tasmania for another four years so he applied to NRM North for funding to complete regular dives.
The funding and support provided by NRM North enabled Mr Tatsumi to establish the CONT program.
Mr Tatsumi said there was a misconception among locals that the Tamar is all silt.
There is a highly diverse range of coral, fish and other species living in the river.
“Basically, I started this program to clean up the river but also to tell what we are doing to the local community,” Mr Tatsumi said.
“Rather than us just pulling out the debris we can actually educate the locals about what is in the Tamar.
“The reason we named this program Our Neighbours in the Tamar because we are affecting our neighbours affecting our neighbours in a bad way.”
NRM North Tamar facilitator Megan Dykman said people do not tend to see divers at the sites so they usually draw intrigue from locals.
“Whenever we pull up the rubbish and get it out on the jetty people are always interested in having a look,” Ms Dykman said.
Plastic never disappears.
- Megan Dykman
Sometimes the crew get fishermen at the sites to help them pull bigger items from the water.
“It is good to have a bit of a presence there and show people what we are doing,” Ms Dykman said.
Plastic is one of the biggest enemies.
“Plastic never disappears, it just breaks up into smaller bits making it easier for fish to ingest, so it is a problem that keeps happening and will stay there,” Ms Dykman said.
Each dive has grabbed the attention of many onlookers.
“While it is not good to find things in the water people actually enjoy it...they were shocked with how much and what we find in the water,” Mr Tatsumi said.
“We believe those emotions are the ones that make difference in the long run.”
NRM North and CONT have been looking at ways to educate the community to prevent people from disposing of rubbish in the Tamar.
CONT member Grace Ho, with the financial assistance of NRM North, launched her book titled Stood in Silence.
The book is a collection of photos Ms Ho has taken of interesting debris at the clean-up dives.
The documentation was originally a project Ms Ho was completing for her Honours but the display drew so much attention she decided more people should have access to her work.
“I hope the book will encourage more people to maintain this beauty and save trash from drowning,” Ms Ho said.
Creating awareness among younger generations is important for the long-term sustainability of the Tamar River.
“It takes a whole lot of effort from others to clear up someone else's inconsiderate actions and I hope more people will know this and be more proactive to identify and prevent potential problems,” Ms Ho said.
CONT plans to use “beautiful” photos taken by QVMAG natural sciences coordinator David Maynard and compare them with Ms Ho’s book.
“What we are hoping to do is provide [David’s] photos and Grace’s book so they can see the good side and bad side of the Tamar and hopefully kids will realise, ‘OK we shouldn’t actually dump things in the water because there are so many things living in the Tamar’,” Mr Tatsumi said.
CONT hopes to distribute class sets of the book to schools along the Tamar so it can be used as a tool to educate children about the estuaries ecosystem.
“We just believe this educating kids and taking a bottom up approach could make things different,” Mr Tatsumi said.
The book is not for sale but it can be made available to the public upon request to NRM North or CONT.
