National Conference on Coastal Cleanup

Overview

ASCOA have been working hard with partners across the country to make 21^st January 2023 the first Cameroon Beach Clean-up Day.

An estimated 18 billion pounds of plastic waste flows into the world’s oceans every year, and this figure is expected to triple in the next 20 years if effective strategies are not implemented. Non-biodegradable waste such as plastics and other heavier debris wash off at the coastline, settle at the seabed, and destroy marine habitats. Cameroon in particular hosts a unique and rich coastal ecosystem and ASCOA has been working to address plastic pollution and marine littering since our foundation in 2014. A national beach clean-up day offers an opportunity to both scale up our existing beach clean-up projects and increase awareness of and engagement with marine pollution.

To launch this project, we are holding a conference on 20^th January 2023. We are bringing together communities, authorities, and other institutional stakeholders for a high-profile discussion. We aim to put local communities at the heart of preventative efforts to improve the state of the Cameroonian coastline, but will also focus in the conference on the necessity of efforts from a range of stakeholders to make this a success.

We will be considering the interlinked issues of ecological decline, negative health implications, and economic impacts in relation to marine pollution.