Federal
Climate Change Minister, Senator Mushahidullah Khan on Saturday said that
empowering people to take an active role in the preservation and cleaning up of
oceans are critical for conservation of the ocean resources and the economic,
food, and environmental services these water bodies provide.
“However, we must realise the unprecedented significance of raising public
awareness at all levels about environmental and health benefits of keeping our
coastal beaches trash-free and checking contamination of oceans,” the Minister
said in a media statement with regard to the International Coastal Cleanup Day
held being marked across the world .
The Coastal Cleanup Day is commemorated every year on September
16 worldwide including Pakistan. The coastal cleanup day was established
by the Ocean Conservancy, an organisation that work to help protect the ocean
from the challenges it faces every year. It serve as a voice for the ocean,
speaking globally of the issues in collaboration with different national,
regional and international organisations and lobby with each to ask
governments, media to join the global voice or call for keep the beaches keen,
beautiful and uncontaminated for trash free ocean.
He that 'Coastal Cleanup
Day is a chance to make a real difference and take initiatives to clean up
coastal beaches of trash, and motivate others to do the same'.
The minister added that
the coastal cleanup and beautification event must be tapped as an opportunity
to transform behaviours towards cleaner, healthier ocean waters and coastal
surroundings.
“We must keep playing
our part to beaches free from trash, particularly plastic trash like straws,
empty beverage bottles tea cups and plastic bags to help reduce the amount of
garbage that gets into the ocean by hauling it away. We can also check with
local government and non-governmental environmental conservation organiations
to get tips and techniques to help us all be more conscientious about our
living style and the negative impacts it casts on the oceans,” the climate
change minister Mushahidullah Khan stressed.
He expressed his serious concern about the way the ocean and the
ocean resources are being ruthlessly polluted to the complete disadvantage of
the environment, oceans and humans lives.
Mushahidullah Khan said every year millions of gallons of
untreated wastewater that flows into oceans and tons of garbage winds up in
these water bodies, over 60 percent of it being plastic material.
“Plastics especially last a very long time
in the ocean, and according to estimates of environmental organisations some
50,000 individual pieces of plastic litter for every square mile of ocean.
Besides, plastics are very lethal to marine life, which lead to deaths of more
than a million birds and over 100,000 seals, turtles, and whales, and a huge
number of fish in our oceans globally,” he highlighted.
However, the annual international “Coastal Cleanup Day” provides
us a great opportunity keep our beaches clean of trash and encourages us to get
out to our beaches and help to limit this problem by cleaning up the garbage
that has washed up on shore, and that left by visitors every day, he added.
The climate change minister Mushahidullah Khan said, “We must
understand that the trash in the oceans badly impacts the world on many scales,
including poising food sources, harming wildlife, humans, and impacting the
livelihood of those who work on the ocean. More importantly, it leads to
economic damage by affecting tourism and recreation and the money they bring
into those poor and marginalized coastal communities. Therefore, solving these
issues need us to take initiatives on our part to wipe out the sources of the
trash that disfigure our beaches and ruin the ocean and ocean resources.”
He also appreciated the over 700 volunteers from different
educational institutions and organisations, who picked thousands of
straws, plastic beverage cups, tea cups, plastic grocery bags and stirrers,
which pose a serious danger to animals like sea turtles, albatross and fish who
can eat them.
Addressing to the volunteers, Mushahidullah Khan said, “Although
today’s coastal cleanup day is definitely a dirty job, it must have come to
prove rewarding one in the end knowing you helped to make a difference and let yourself
and your parents and the society be proud of you all! By volunteering, you have
made me really proud of you by collecting trash from cigarettes to plastic bags
to glass bottles and more and making the beach look neat and clean.”
