Earth Day Cleanup in the Maldives in 2012

Maldivers diving centre located in the capital Male’ have been organizing the Male’ North West house reef clean up since the year 2000. This cleanup usually coincide with the World environment day or the Earth day.

We went out to see how the cleanup was going. Muhammed Azmee from Maldivers gave an insight to the cleanup event. In addition to the cleanup, donations and signatures were being collected for the project AWARE, of which this year the slogan is, Give Sharks a Fighting Chance.

Fahud Faisal, a volunteer at the cleanup has strong connections to this area. As a young boy Fahud use to regularly swim at this North West side of male’. Fahud has been participating in the cleanup every year since it’s inception. It seems that the number of large items that they have been collecting  during the cleanup had decreased compared to previous years. However, there is a marked increase in the amount of plastic bottles and fishing line. Like previous years, the most abundant item that they come across is still blackmagic paraphernalia.