News

Welcome to our final newsletter for 2011, and what a year it has been for Eco Barge Services!

We are proud to announce we are now officially a ‘not for profit’ community group called Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc. and we have been approved to raise public donations! This will help us immensely to keep our marine debris removal program on-going for the region. Please click on the donation link here if you would like to donate towards keeping our precious marine life safe from marine debris.

Sponsors needed

Help us to reach our goal of removing 12 thousand kilos of marine debris in 2012.

We now have a corporate sponsorship package for any businesses interested in becoming one of our very much needed sponsors for our Marine Debris Removal Program for 2012. Please contact us to discuss ways in which your company can become one of our supporters to help us protect the Whitsunday marine life from marine debris.

What we have been up to over the last two months:

Eco Barge teamed up with Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) to remove marine debris from Thomas and Shaw Island in late November. This was a great day working together and we removed a massive 651 kilos of marine debris from very impacted beaches on these two islands. We really want to thank QPWS for this support to our program, and hope we can continue working together in the coming year.

Bunnings Ladies Night

This was a great event held at Bunnings, designed to encourage ladies to become more involved in the hardware and home ideas field. We were invited to have a stall, along with many other local not for profit groups in our area. Entertainment was provided by a local singing group and also a dance troupe, creating a most enjoyable night for all involved. We want to thank Bunnings for their generous donation of $70 for Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc.

Reef Festival 2011

Recyclable regatta

We entered our marine debris raft in the recyclable regatta this year. Whilst our raft had a few design issues, nevertheless we all had fun, especially the kids! This event is a wonderful fun way to highlight the need to protect our environment. This was the second year of the Recyclable Regatta. Many thanks go to the very passionate John Nayler for of all his hard work and organisation making the day a huge success.

Family Fun Day

This year we had a marine debris sculpture competition where families could make art from a huge pile of marine debris that we had previously collected from the islands. We had over 50 completed entries and all were outstanding. This year there were five winners. The top prize, of a trip for 2 adults and three kids to the reef onboard Cruise Whitsunday, went to Lily Arena aged 8. Her sculpture depicting a turtle caught in a crab pot amazed everyone. She made the turtle from green glass and wrapped it around with wire mesh. She is a truly remarkable artist.

Awards

QLD Regional Achievement and Community Awards

Libby Edge, our founding Chair was nominated this year for two awards. She won the Peabody Environment and Land Care award for the Regional Achievement and Community Awards. She won this well-deserved award because of her timeless dedication in protecting the marine environment. This gala event happened in November and thanks to the Whitsunday Regional Council, which helped her financially with the costs of the flights, she was able to personally accept her award.

Australia Day – Local Hero Award QLD

Libby was also a finalist for the Local Hero Award for QLD in the Australia Day Awards this year. What an honor it was to be selected as a finalist because there were over 5000 nominations this year, for this particular award, Libby was one of only four finalists in this category. She didn’t win it for QLD but having attended this award event she met some amazing Australians who are all helping to their bit for their country.

Karla from Figure Head Hair Salon, also an Eco Barge volunteer, heard Libby was attending these awards and offered to cut and colour Libby’s hair. Figure Head Hair Salon is in the heart of Airlie and uses Eco-friendly products in their salon, Check out the photos! Karla really helped Libby scrub up well!

Airlie Paradise Printing printed Libby 150 business cards to help her for both of these awards, this is a great help to our program as Libby handed out all these cards to people that are interested in our program.
 

Turtles in Care

We have teamed up with Whitsunday Fauna Rescue and Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to help care for two sick green turtles over the last couple of months. We are happy to announce the first turtle, called “Princess” was release with a full bill of health and a tummy full of squid and the second “Billie” was taken to Reef HQ Turtle hospital to be looked after. Billie came in with a hook in her neck. The vet removed this hook but after a couple days in care she started to poo plastic, which was a shock to us all. She is now in care and we look forward to sending you a good report after her stay at Reef HQ.

New Sponsor! – Kapow Interactive

Kapow Interactive specialises in websites that really work! They offer a personalised service with a highly professional look, custom template design, and user friendly interfaces for each and every client. They then follow it up with exceptional customer service, and a 3 month guarantee. The end result: websites that pop! Just check out our website to see how amazing they really are! We really want to thank Megan from Kapow Interactive for helping support Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc.
 

"Free the Whitsundays from Marine Debris" Calendar 2012

We are excited to announce that we have been busy working on the “Free the Whitsundays from Marine Debris” 2012 calendar which helps highlight ways in which our community can help to reduce marine debris entering our marine environment in the Whitsundays.

We all play a vital role in helping to protect the Great Barrier Reef which is right on our doorstep. There is no better forum to highlight ways in which we can help reduce marine debris, than by listening to our local reef guardian school kids. Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc. asked the Cannonvale State Primary School to run an art competition, to promote what our school children saw as ways we can all help reduce the threat of marine debris on our environment. These incredible artworks will be used for our 2012 calendar
 

A big thank you and congratulations to our winners; picking only twelve was one of our toughest jobs yet! Our team at Eco Barge Clean Seas Inc. would like to thank the Cannonvale State School children on their high quality entries. The calendar also includes local dates and marine information relative to the Whitsunday Region.

The winning children were announced at assembly on Wednesday 23 November 2012. Calendars are available to purchase for $5 at IGA at Jubilee Pocket, all proceeds go towards keeping our Seas Clean!
 

We also want to thank all the calendars sponsors; Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, the Whitsunday Regional Council, PCYC, The Whitsunday Neighbourhood Centre, True Blue Adventure Sailing, Fantasea, Cannonvale Kids, Whitsunday Local Marine Advisory Committee, at Hotel Group, Ocean Rafting, and Barrier Reef Institute of TAFE. Much gratitude also goes to our major sponsors for helping make this year’s calendar possible; Graphic House, Big 4 Whitsunday Adventure Resort and the Cannonvale State School.

We want to thank you all for subscribing to our newsletter list and for your interest in our program.

Have a great Christmas and happy New Year!

Libby Edge

October Newsletter 2011   Recent Clean up trips total = 1429 kilos of marine debris removed from Whitsunday Region         Day trip with our Leader of the Opposition Hon Tony Abbott: 29th August, saw Eco Barge hosting the Leader of the Opposition The Hon Mr Tony Abbott. Mr Abbott volunteered his time for a clean-up trip on Eco Barge to help remove marine debris from a beach on South Molle Island. We gave Tony a ‘hands on’ experience showing how marine debris is impacting upon the marine environment. We want to thank the 20 volunteers and Scamper Camping Tours for making this day a huge success. We are hoping this day made a strong impact on Mr Abbott, so as to become increasingly more passionate about helping to protect the delicate balance of our marine life from the obstructive threats of marine debris. By introducing and showing our parliamentary friends these concerning issues, it is the first step forward to creating policies that will make a real change to the devastating issue of marine debris. We would like to thank George Christensen MP for making this day possible. Total 185 kilos of marine debris removed Sponsored trips         Whitsunday Regional Council 20th September   Eco Barge ran a clean-up trip along the Bluff Point Coastline. We took five students, including Chris Lane the teacher of the Marine Education Class from Proserpine High School out on the Eco Barge to collect and learn about the impacts and solutions for marine debris. On this day we collected a large amount of plastic drinking bottles and plastic bags. The students loved this day out on the water, understanding and helping our local marine environment. Total 312 kilos of marine debris collected         Great Northern Clean Up Event 17th September 2011   Sponsors: Rotary of Airlie Beach and Whitsunday Transit. Eco Barge held the ‘Great Northern Clean Up Event’ this year with the support from Rotary and Whitsunday Transit including 32 volunteers. They all helped collect litter between Port of Airlie through to Able Point Marina, including the Main Street of Airlie and the loop road. To thank our hard working volunteers we put on a BBQ. Many thanks goes to the Rotary club of Airlie Beach for all their generous support. The club helped by supplying a BBQ, sausages, extra gloves, bags, t-shirts and a tent. Whitsunday Transit helped by supplying our long distance cleaners, bus tickets for their return journey back to our base at the Airlie Beach Markets. A big thanks also goes to our 32 volunteers who were able to assist in sorting and counting out the grand total of 412 kilos of litter. Our town looks great! Total 412 kilosof litter collected         True Blue Sailing Eleven volunteers headed out to Saba Bay and Hook Island to clean one of the most impacted beaches within the Whitsundays. We were also able to collect Ben Ware’s huge pile of marine debris that he had previously collected and piled up above high water line for us to remove. This is a wonderful example on how each one of us can play a role to make sure our trips are as productive as possible. On this beach we found a dead baby dolphin which we have reported to the E.P.A hot line. With this team effort we collected a massive 520 kilos of marine debris. Thanks True Blue Sailing and Ben’s efforts for making this a successful day. 520 kilos of marine debris collected         Marine Scientist study conducted We are proud to announce we have added a new component to our trips, by conducting special plastic tows with a manta trawl on our Eco Barge trips! We are working with Qamar Schuyler, a marine scientist investigating the impacts of marine debris on sea turtles. By towing a specialised net at the surface of the water and comparing the samples taken on these trips, we can learn which types of debris turtles encounter the most. Qamar, Eco Barge and QPWS are working together to collect stranded deceased turtles in the Whitsunday region to investigate if their deaths were caused by plastics, and hopefully understand some of the impacts caused by marine litter.       Alarming Turtle and Dugong Deaths Please be aware that due to the recent storms and cyclonic activity there have been an overwhelming number of turtle and dugong deaths. We would gratefully appreciate your help in reporting any of these strandings to the EPA hotline or you can report to Eco Barge and we will send this information on to the Stranding hotline for you. EPA HOT LINE NU 1300 130 372 There is also one number for reporting stranded marine animals (turtles, whales, dolphins) and they should be reported to this number ASAP:  RSPCA’s 1300 ANIMAL (1300 264 625)           Fauna Rescue     Fauna Rescue Whitsundays is our local non-profit, voluntary organisation who cares for sick injured & orphaned wildlife. They are always seeking new members not only to care for the wildlife but to help with fundraising activities, admin duties, working bees or act as a release site. To report any other wildlife (including sea birds) or if you are interested in helping our wildlife and/or joining Fauna Rescue Whitsundays please contact: Fauna Rescue Whitsundays Hotline on 4947 3389            Conway Beach Clean Up 8th September 2011, Suzanna and Alan Fuller cleaned up Conway beach. Together they removed 45.6 kilos of marine debris. They counted, sorted and entered the collected litter into the Tangaroa Blue National Marine Park, debris data base. Just to name a few items they collected, were 201 hard plastic pieces, 64 plastic drinking bottles, 106 bottle lids and they also found a dead turtle which we reported to the E.P.A Hotline.       Coral Seas Org Campaign We were visited by our Protect Our Coral Sea campaigners Daisy and Xanthe this month and showed how we can support their goal to establish a large, world-class, highly protected marine park in the Coral Sea [The Coral Sea Marine Park]. This will enable us to provide a safe haven for marine life and be able to recognize its historical significance. The organisers are calling on all businesses and residents to help make this a reality, by supporting the campaign. To find out more about how to support this worthwhile cause, please click on this link: http://www.protectourcoralsea.org.au Businesses can also show their support by signing thebusiness petition.       Many volunteers and committee members have really helped our program over the past few months and I would like to say a huge thank you for all your support. Kind regards, Libby Edge

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