Expedition 2022.
Our expedition this year will see us heading east, hiking approximately 250km from Storm's River Mouth to Cape Recife in Port Elizabeth. This will increase our total distance of the South African shoreline surveyed during our coastal research expeditions to over 855km, an impressive 28.5% of the coastline.
The terrain will be a blend of rocky shoreline, cliff top trails and long stretches of sandy beaches along a coastline that is internationally renowned as one of the harshest, frequently battered by strong winds and large swells..
The route will take us from remote sections of coastline to areas exposed to the combined stress of rapidly expanding urbanization and drought stricken interior as well as established chokka fisheries. This will provide a unique opportunity to survey a section of coastline not easily accessible for regular monitoring and to determine the extent of washed up abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG).
With many rivers not flowing due to the regional drought, it will also provide the perfect opportunity to establish a baseline of plastic debris that is not influenced by the inflow of rivers to the region.
Expedition Dates
We will travel to Storm's River mouth on the 24th October 2022 and aim to finish in Port Elizabeth on the 6th November.
Marine Protected Areas and limited access Coastline.
Considered the best kept secret of Port Elizabeth, the Sardinia Bay MPA, is a small MPA, but has the highest rate of endemic species of any of South Africa's MPA, and we look forward to measuring the level of protection against plastic pollution and washed up ALDFG in the MPA.
Mapping Trash Distribution.
For locals that take regular beach hikes in the Southern Cape, it has become painfully apparent that certain types of plastic pollution washes up at specific locations on the shoreline.
By mapping the location of various categories of plastic found on the hike we will able to link it to possible sources from which they leak into the ocean, namely rivers and municipal infrastructure..
Of particular interest will be the shoreline east and west of Cape St Francis, Jeffries Bay and .
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
In the wake of the implementation of the EPR levy recommended by the UN and currently being adopted internationally, there is an global appetite for categorized and harmonised plastic pollution data, especially with respect to ocean plastic waste. The Strandloper Project expedition survey methods have been based on categorizing types of plastic documented in our surveys in a repeatable format. To date we have mapped the density and distribution of plastic pollution and fishing debris along 605km of coastline, approximately 20% of the South African shoreline. Our 2022 expedition will take our total distance surveyed to over 855km, over 28.5% of the coastline, which will provide a comprehensive overview of plastic waste distribution.
Baseline Survey.
Plastic pollution and fishing debris will be documented using our regular survey methods on our Cyber Tracker App. The surveys are :
- Trashy 20 transect,
- Plastic Bottle Transect
- Incidental Sightings
- Nurdle density
- African Black Oystercatcher survey
Incidental sightings cover both pollution, fishing activities and marine fauna seen. We will be adding a few more fields for our data collection, specifically the incidental sightings of plastic debris to indicate if the items are terrestrial or ocean derived.
Raffle to Raise Funds for 2022 Expedition
In conjunction with In Toto Retreat and local outdoor businesses, we have created a 4 day breakaway in the Garden Route.
Each raffle ticket is R100.00 and enters you into the draw to win a 4 day breakaway for two people. The breakaway includes 4 nights at In Toto Retreat, a hiking tour, morning birding on the Lakes Loop Birding tour, a Moonlight Meander Tour, a canoe trip on the Touw River with Eden Adventures and a R500.00 voucher at Pomodoro's in Wilderness.
You can buy raffle tickets by making a donation on our crowd funding platform. Each R100.00 donation will give you one entry into the raffle.
We will draw the winning raffle ticket when we complete our 2022 expedition at Cape Recife on the 5th November
Social Media.
During the expedition we will again provide daily morning FaceBook video updates on our progress and findings.
To complement our FaceBook updates, we will post on Instagram and you can follow our posts by searching for the #Expedition2022 and #SPE2022 Hashtags
School Participation.
The route for this years expedition allows for engagement with local schools during the expedition, so if you would like to join us for a section of our expedition to learn more about our methods, please send us an email. We will also be planning follow up visits to schools in the region after the expedition. If you are interested in learning more about how your school can get involved, contact Mark on email. |
