By Ahmet Abdulaziz …
Our island is full of lovely natural beaches, providing not just for us to enjoy nature’s gift, but to all of the incoming tourists. But unfortunately, we are not in the habit of keeping our beaches clean.
Our beaches suffer just because we are not careful enough in taking good care of them. The present situation does not only carry risk to humans’ health but also carry great danger to the sea and the under-sea natural lives.
The above views were expressed by Çise Sezerel, the representative of “The World is not just ours only Movement” (DÜNYA YALNIZ BIZIM DEĞİL HAREKETİ). This movement is basically concerned about the betterment of the environment and animal rights.
Recently they arranged for a campaign to clean the beaches near the Akdeniz village. The campaign saw volunteers cleaning the beach of plastics, metals, and all sorts of other materials. As Sezerel mentioned, the excessive use of plastic in every field of life is ultimately leading to an unclean environment everywhere. The waste of all sorts in the sea, around Cyprus particularly, badly affects the lives of Caretta and the green tortoises, which are facing great danger of extinction. She emphasised that such species are struggling hard to continue living, and apart from the natural hazards, the human related obstacles are a real challenge before them.
I am a member of Karsiyaka Turtle Watch (KTW) – we clean the beaches as much as we can during the season – during a daily checks but it would be good to arrange a massive clean up at the beginning of the season! As you said it is quite disgusting some of the things you find! Jenny Tyler
Hello Jenny,
if you and a few friends would like to start the challenge and an appeal for volunteers to help you, we are fully behind you and will give this Clean Up as much publicity as possible.
This is a really good initiative, and I agree with Jenny that getting volunteers for mass clean ups of beaches at the start of the main tourist season would help. Perhaps we could raise money for a few multilingual ‘don’t drop litter’ signs as well?
How about stepping up to the mark Steven and get the ball rolling and perhaps others will follow.
I think we could maybe get some businesses to sponsor the signs and more ‘bins’ they could advertise their products and support of the clean up!
I will see if I can start the ball rolling!
Jenny
Well done Jenny and you can tell any business that you approach on this issue, that the CyprusScene.com weekly Enewspaper and website will promote their activity with this very important issue.