Human Nature Adventure Therapy team up with OzFish
On 25th January 2022, OzFish Unlimited, Australia’s fishing conservation charity, partnered with a local NGO – Human Nature Adventure Therapy that assists local youths with mental health and behaviour issues.
Human Nature Adventure Therapy youth pupils wanted to give back to the local community and helped us out by paddling upstream of Fishery Creek and collecting rubbish.
OzFish Richmond River Chapter volunteers currently help preserve the last remaining saltmarsh in the Richmond River area in Ballina.
Some actions that our OzFish heroes contribute to preserving this precious habitat is cleaning up rubbish, educating people on how to look after saltmarsh, assisting in the removal of feral animals, encouraging users of waterways to avoid walking directly on the saltmarsh, weed removal that encroaches the saltmarsh and planting natives to provide a buffer between terrestrial to saltmarsh habitats.
OzFish Project Officer, Demara Gates, has been leading this project with the OzFish Richmond River Chapter and believes that it is important for the community to give back and be rewarded for their hard work.
Although not a large waterway, Fishery creek is densely populated with mangrove forests and salt marsh terrain, essential for habitat growth for juvenile fish. Unfortunately, debris large and small get caught in these areas between the shifting tides, causing problems.
Plastic pollution is one of the biggest threats to our waterways. It can take one plastic bottle up to 400-1000 years to break down completely and are in the top range of common rubbish items picked up in waterways. The plastics that are able to break down only become smaller pieces of plastic (called microplastics).
The debris collected in Fishery Creek was recorded and uploaded the Australian Marine Debrie Database coordinated by Tangaroa Blue, an online database that collects pollution clean-ups so we can identify what, how, and why rubbish is polluting the land and its waterways. Combined efforts of OzFish and Human Nature Adventure Therapy collected 20kg of rubbish, mainly consisting of plastic bottles, aluminum cans and poly pipe.
Sally McAdam Staff at Human Nature Adventure Therapy said,
“it’s important for our pupils to feel good about themselves, and sometimes this is as easy as giving back to the environment. The pupils were very excited to hire some canoes, meet up with some like-minded people like OzFish, collect some rubbish, and have a good time doing it!”
“that we didn’t realise how much rubbish would be caught up in the mangroves and saltmarsh…we learnt heaps from getting ourselves wet and dirty.”
The program is being funded by the NSW Government through a partnership between the Saving Our Species program and the Environmental Trust.