Walvis Bay community rallies for marine conservation with cleanup

Ocean Conservation Namibia (OCN) had its first Walvis Bay community cleanup last week.

It is an initiative aimed at addressing the growing issue of marine pollution and protecting local wildlife.

“We saw the amount of rubbish piling up around town and saw the need to intercept rubbish before it reaches the ocean, before seals and other marine animals get entangled in it,” OCN co-founder Naude Dreyer says.

Dreyer says through their social media, they invited locals to join them on World Cleanup Day, and more than 50 people showed up on 21 September.

“In the end, our clean up team had filled 238 big rubbish bags, roughly 3.5 tonnes of rubbish,” he says.

He says something must be done.

“it’s very inspiring to see how much we could get done in such a short amount of time and how keen people were to help,” Dreyer adds.

Dreyer gave special thanks to Walvis Bay company Plastic Packaging for sponsoring gloves and rubbish bags, and a local soup kitchen task for providing meals to all the helpers after the cleanup.

“Our next cleanup campaign will be done at the end of October, and we are expecting an even bigger turnout,” he says.