Research led by Professor Noam Vogt-Vincent and DPhil researcher Alex Albinski is shedding new light on a pressing environmental challenge facing Seychelles: where are the tonnes of fishing gear and plastic washing up on its beaches actually coming from?
Seychelles is home to some of the world’s most remarkable marine environments, including the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Aldabra Atoll. Yet even these remote and protected coastlines are affected by huge quantities of marine debris, from discarded fishing equipment to plastic waste.
In a new article for The Conversation, Noam and Alex share research that gets to the heart of the problem by tracing this debris back to its likely sources.
Combining five years of satellite data tracking fishing and commercial vessels with sophisticated modelling of how debris travels on ocean currents, the researchers were able to build a much clearer picture of where the waste reaching Seychelles may originate.
And their findings reveal some surprises.
Rather than simply being carried to the islands from distant coastlines, the research points to the important role of fishing activity and major shipping routes in the western Indian Ocean. Crucially, it also shows how identifying where pollution comes from could help Seychelles move from cleaning up the consequences to tackling the problem at its source.
For small island states, which can face a disproportionate environmental and financial burden from marine pollution, that evidence could be particularly valuable.
In The Conversation, Noam and Alex take readers behind the research, explain what they discovered about the journeys taken by this marine debris, and explore what their findings could mean for efforts to protect Seychelles’ extraordinary marine environment.
Read the full article in The Conversation.
