IMF and International Coastal Clean-up (ICC)

The oceans form the largest natural habitat on earth. They dominate the surface of our planet, covering most of it in a swathe of blue. To many of us, they are mysterious environments and indeed many parts of them remain unexplored. Yet now, at last, their greatest mysteries are beginning to unravel, as scientists and explorers scan their surfaces and plumb their darkest depths. In the past few years, new light has been shed on this previously alien world and in the process, many marvels have been discovered.

Life on our planets began in the oceans. Every living thing on earth – ourselves included – can trace its ancestry back to living organisms that once lived in the sea. Today the oceans are home to a dazzling host of creatures. Some of them are relatively recent additions to the tree of life, while others have barely changed since they first evolved hundreds of million years ago. All of them have one thing in common – they are survivors, each perfectly adapted for life in the sea.

To the casual observer, the oceans might seem homogenous, a vast expanse of water stretching endlessly across the globe. From the poles to the tropics they contain almost endless variety, posing challenges to life in some places while in others offering it tremendous opportunities to flourish and thrive.

The IMF is one of the bodies in India that speak out vigorously about the alarming plight of the health of the oceans, caused mostly by human intervention. IMF has inspired a number of people and organisations to protect marine ecology, with which we have been actively engaged for the past 12 years (since 2003), in partnership with The Ocean Conservancy (TOC), a leading Washington DC-based NGO that strives to be the world’s foremost advocate for the oceans. TOC promotes healthy and diverse ocean ecosystems and opposes practices that threaten ocean life and human life. Through research, education, and science-based advocacy, TOC informs, inspires, and empowers people to speak and act on behalf of the oceans.

The IMF has been conducting and coordinating beach and river bank cleanups across India on both the East and the West coasts, under the aegis of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC), a global program of TOC. Beach cleanups, as well as collecting litter from river banks, are carried out globally by volunteers in nearly 100 countries, on the third Saturday in September every year. It is the largest volunteer program in the world, with nearly half a million people participating. In India, volunteers, from numerous schools, colleges and NGOs, conduct cleanups and collect litter at nearly 100 sites every year. This is one of our most nationally rewarding programs.

The International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) engages people to remove debris from the world’s beaches and waterways. Any debris around Oceans or waterways becomes a source of pollution. IMF and ICC are encouraging a campaign for a healthy Ocean ecosystem integral and intrinsic to our policy; this encompasses different water bodies apart from the ocean. It includes cleaning river shores, and the surroundings of lakes, ponds or even canals. Water from these waterways first goes into rivers and rivers eventually drain into the sea; this amazing sequence has continued since time immemorial. The time has come for mankind to realize that clean lakes and rivers will result in clean oceans. We owe this to the environment. If we ignore these precepts it means we are encouraging a syndrome that must be avoided at all costs: Global Warming. The cleanup we are fostering is part of a nationally rewarding programme. IMF has been diligently conducting this operation once every year since 2003. The details of the programmes carried out thus far are described below.

River Banks and Coastal Clean Up Activities