Introduction

The International Coastal Cleanup is coordinated by the Centre for Marine Conservation. Their webpage has information about the history, motivation, country reports and more. CMC webpage

The Singapore chapter of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICCS) began in 1991. The country coordinator for SIngapore is the Nature Society (Singapore) and by 1997, there were more than 2,500 volunteers participating, sponsored by the Rotary Club of SIngapore and Caltex Oil.

After establishing a strong programme in the beaches, organisers launched the first mangrove cleanup in Singapore during the 6th ICCS in 1997 at the Sungei Mandai Kechil mangroves. Subsequently, the mangrove cleanup has been conducted at the Buloh-Kranji mangroves, operating out of the Sungei Buloh Nature Park. In 1999 (3rd mangrove cleanup), Sungei Buloh Nature Park formally joined the ICC family and jointly ran the event at the park.

This year, in the 10th Anniversary of the ICCS, the mangrove cleanup will reach the core area of the Kranji mangroves, an area with an extremely high load of trash that has accumulated over decades.

Work at this site iss possible this year with the help of ham radio operators from the Singapore Amateur Radio Transmitting Society who will provide the safety commmunication network and canoeists from the Sea Scouts who will organise the removal of trash to pickup points during the afternoon high tide.

The mangrove cleanup will have two pre-event activities: a briefing at the NUS Science Auditorium (LT 31) and an introduction to the mangrove ecosystem at Sungei Buloh Nature Park

See article on the ICCS in the Mangroves of SIngapore I.

 

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Useful guidelines
Guidelines from the Centre for Marine Conservation, USA

Guidelines from the Nature Society (Singapore)

More to come - guidelines for organisers, coordinators, participants.

Data recording and compilation

The data card is a double-sided card listing the most common items found along shorelines. Participants record the incidence of items using these cards. Each group of 3-5 studdents can share a card. You can download the data card below, either in MS-Word or in Adobe PDF formats; you will need Acrobat Reader for the latter, and you can dowload for free ) .

At the end of the event, all the data cards for each school should be compiled using the Excel spreadsheet provided below, and submitted to the Data Manager for Singapore the same day.

The Data Manager will compile all the Singapore data from beaches and mangroves and subimt the results to the CMC within a week. You will be able to see the summaries at this webpage at the end of the day of the event. CMC will then compile the international data, which are issued in reports and posted to their webpages.

OS format	Data card	Data submission
Mac
PC (save and double-click)

Data examples

Data for Buloh - Kranji mangroves: Raw data from 8th ICCS (1999) - Dirty Dozen data from 9th ICCS (2000)

More to come - Singapore data records for beaches, other years, dirty dozen, no. of participants, schools with a record, no of bags collected, miles cleaned etc.

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For the record...
Thanks to Karman Chua et al. for scanning the slides!

6th ICC Singapore, 20th September 1997
First mangrove cleanup in Singapore. It was a small crowd (<40) of mainly adults compared to the more then 2,500 volunteers on beaches, but it provided some of the hardest work - View gallery

7th ICC SIngapore, 19th September, 1998
The ICC was nearly rained out, and in fact, beach sites had to be abandoned because of the threat of lightning strikes. The mangrove session went off okay, though - View gallery.

8th ICC Singapore, 18th September 1999
It was a bright and sunny day, hence, the brighter pictures! - View Gallery
Report that appeared in Wetlands, a publication of the Sungei Buloh Nature Park

9th ICC Singapore, 16th September 2000
t mangrove sites in Sungei Buloh and Kranji were students and teachers from the Singapore
American School (high and middle schools), St. Andrew's and Victoria Junior College,
supported by Sungei Buloh Nature Park, the Nature Society (Singapore) & The Habitat Group.
View photos from Victoria Junior College, SAVE & SAJC

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Interested in joining us?

The mangrove cleanup is hoping to recruit helpers and supervisors for
various aspects of the operations.

Anyone is welcome; it's funa and meaningful. There are all sorts of jobs you can do:
- pick up and categorise the trash on the actual cleanup day,
- "loaders" - strong men who carry the heaviest loads and constantly remove loaded trash bags,
- supervisors to the volunteers,
- guides for nature guiding prior to the event,
- logistics,
- drivers,
- first aid and safety,
- data entry
- photography,
- webpage maintenance (this page sure needs help!)
- etc, etc, etc.

Just email

N. Sivasothi - mangrove cleanup. The working group has already been active.

Patrick Neo (NSS) - the beach cleanup on 15th September 2001 coordinates much larger numbers on the beaches and would appreciate help too!

 

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Links to international efforts

CMC ICC webpage - where it all starts

EPA (US) A Learning Guide on Marine Debris - useful for teachers; downloadable PDF format.

Mangroves - South Africa

Bottle from Singapore makes it to the US!

Webpages/News reports - Bermuda | Brazil | Okinawa | Philipines | Papua New Guinea | Singapore: RGS 1997 - PAYM | South Africa | Ocean Watch, USA | ICC Conference 1999 | California | Delaware | New York | New York State | Virginia | Washington

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The site this year

Buloh (including the park) and Kranji mangroves.