Pulling the plug on plastic

The dynamic nature of the vast Atlantic ocean makes it impossible for us to guarantee a cetacean sighting during our tours . There is, however, one sighting we can give our guests a 100% guarantee for; plastic. We literally see plastic on every single one of our trips in all colours, shapes and sizes. It’s not a secret; we live in an age of plastic and our boats are travelling through a plastic ocean.

Every year 8 million metric tonnes of plastic enter our oceans, a frightening number that simply adds to the unbelievable amounts that already litter the planets marine ecosystems, forming large aggregations and soiling pristine beaches in some of the worlds most remote areas. Thankfully, humanity is now also aware of the disastrous effects of the material we unfortunately so direly depend on. Plastic pollutes our daily news feed with horrific images of entangled marine fauna, pictures of deceased birds with their stomachs full of plastic and distressing reports of toxic microplastic pellets found in human stool samples. We are eating our own rubbish, it has gotten this far.

The daily news on the plastic disaster is highly depressing and makes the situation sound incredibly hopeless. This, however, is not a time for giving up hope. We owe it to our planet and to future generations to change our lifestyles and eliminate habits that are destroying the ecosystems we so dearly rely on for survival. This responsibility doesn’t just apply to individuals like yourselves but also to companies like Lobosonda. We do our best to encourage our guests to live with more awareness towards the ocean and marine life by bringing them closer to the beautiful animals of the Atlantic… but we owe the oceans more than that.

To help improve the plastic pollution problem around Madeira, Lobosonda decided to its part. These are some of the small steps in 2018 that we hope will be part of a greater contribution to help pull the plug on plastic.

1) Claro Calheta: Single-use plastics constitute the majority of plastic litter in our oceans. While some single-use plastic is more tricky to avoid, most products are simply linked to bad habits which make their consumption much easier to exclude in our lives. Plastic straws, for instance, are used for ten minutes and take up to 200 years to decompose after being disposed of. The Claro movement in mainland Portugal has already expanded through Lisbon, motivating restaurant owners to ditch the plastic straw and go with more environmentally-friendly options. This successful project inspired us to do the same in Calheta marina so we decided to team up with the Claro movement to make our marina plastic-straw free. This project is still pending and will involve some work but we hope to have it materialize by World Oceans Day 2019, a global celebration of our oceans that encourages people to join in the fight against plastic.

If you want to know more about how Claro beat plastic straws in Lisbon, check out their website; https://clarocascais.com/

2) Supporting the „Blue dream“: Every year Lobosonda prepares something special on World Oceans Day. This year the event fell on Friday the 8th of June and our team decided to donate a percentage of our profit from the tours that day to support the wonderful Blue Dream project. The members of the „Blue Dream“ team docked in the marina of Calheta last year with their beautiful wooden schooner, the „Mahayana“. The boat stands as a symbol of man working with natural materials rather than with plastic while the crew on board act as ambassadors for awareness on microplastic pollution. The team sails the high seas of the world, taking water samples to support to research on microplastic and raise awareness through various workshops.

If you’re eager to learn more about the Blue Dream project or help support their work, visit their website; https://www.thebluedreamproject.org/

3) Clean-up! During our tours on the Stenella, our crew does ist best to collect all the marine litter it encounters in an attempt to raise awareness amongst our guests. In the next months we intend to take things a step further and organise a beach-cleanup to kick-start the new year with cleaner beaches near our marina. The event should also give the public more clarity on which plastic litters our oceans the most and hopefully encourage people to avoid using those products.

If you wish to participate or follow our Beach-Cleanup, watch this space for updates on the event and we will keep you posted.

These are baby steps and are all with good intention but we still have alot of work to do and improvements to make. The plastic problem won’t solve itself. If we gradually change our habits and adopt a lifestyle where we choose to love nature rather than take it for granted, things may change for the better.

By Paula Thake