Clean Up Christmas Island
- by: Susan V
- recipient: Australian Government
Christmas Island is so full of flotsam and jetsam, hatchling turtles can’t get through the garbage to get to the sea. A year-round nesting ground for green and hawkbeak turtles, this Australian island sits in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia.
While visiting the island’s Greta Beach with his family, Paul Nicholas was so shocked to see the piles of rubbish he “sat down to make a video” to show and tell the world about it. Soon one of the grandkids discovered a hatchling hemmed in by trash and struggling to escape.
Before the day was over, the family freed and filmed 25 of them making their way to the water.
But Nicholas knows countless others will be smothered until this “environmental nightmare and wildlife calamity” is cleaned up. There’s only two beaches on CI where these turtles can nest, he says, and we need to keep them clean of all debris.
Tell Australia to help Nicholas Clean Up Christmas Island.
We, the undersigned, are surprised and concerned that Australia would allow Christmas Island beaches to deteriorate to the degree shown in Nicholas’ film, and we agree with him that they should be cleaned and kept clean of all debris.
But apparently doing so will take a concerted effort with the mainland, because, as the park website shows, much of the trash comes from dumping in streams running into the ocean from as far away as Queensland. And Queensland’s recent action to remove the levy on construction waste is bound to make the situation even worse.
We request that the Australian Government help Christmas Island National Park clean up the mess that’s there now and come up with and enforce a nationwide plan to prevent future pollution.
Thank you for your time.
