By: Sara Gordon, FRIENDS Intern
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ver Labor Day weekend, The Island School in Eleuthera, Bahamas, held its first-ever Youth Action Island Summit and welcomed students ages twelve to eighteen from the Bahamas and Jamaica. This summit was an effort to bring together activists, artists, scientists, educators and island youth in the hope of spreading awareness about the problems of plastic pollution in our oceans. Not only does plastic pollution affect local beaches that are being overrun with debris, it also has detrimental consequences for marine organisms and human health. The Island School hosted the event along with 5 Gyres, Cape Eleuthera Institute, and musician Jack Johnson, creator of All At Once, a social action network.
The Bahamas, located on the border of the North Atlantic gyres, has significant ocean plastic pollution from its own consumption, as well as plastic that has carelessly been washed out to sea from around the world. Since it serves as a collection site for ocean debris moved by the gyres, solutions are necessary not only for the islands of the Bahamas but for coastlines around the world. The Youth Action Island Summit is one avenue to provide tools and education to inspire corrections to the problem of ocean plastic pollution. One Bahamian solution already working to decrease the problem is The Bahamas Plastic Movement, an organization that works with initiatives to break Bahamian dependency on plastic. The founder of Bahamas Plastic Movement, Kristal Ambrose, began the movement after she sailed with 5 Gyres who helped host the summit.
Representatives from Friends of the Environment (FRIENDS), accompanied by Forest Heights Academy Eco Club members, traveled to The Island School for the summit. Locally, in Abaco, Bahamas, FRIENDS will be working through education programs to bring awareness of plastic pollution problems to our own island and introduce ways that we can reduce the use of single-use plastics in our communities. FRIENDS also partners on two major cleanup programs each year–National Coastal Awareness Month in April and International Coastal Cleanup in September–in addition to holding smaller cleanups throughout the year. Learn how to get involved by following Friends of the Environment on Facebook.
Friends of the Environment is a non-profit environmental organizations devoted to preserving Abaco’s fragile environment and working towards a more sustainable future. For more information, visit www.friendsoftheenvironment.org, call (242) 367-2721 or email info@friendsoftheenvironment.org.
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