The CPMR, our Geographical Commissions and our member regions joined young people in Madeira for a Beach Clean-Up.

Organised at our General Assembly, held in Madeira’s capital city Funchal on 17-20 October, the beach clean-up highlighted the need to tackle marine litter in Europe and across the world.

The beach-clean up was organised following the adoption, in June 2018, of a declaration on plastic and sea waste by the CPMR Political Bureau. In this declaration, the CPMR expresses its intentions to implement a range of initiatives in line with the European Commission’s strategy on marine litter and plastic pollution.

Beach cleaning exercises are an important way of raising awareness of the elected representatives and the population. The European Commission promotes these type of initiatives through its ‘EU Beach Clean Up’ campaign.

Marine litter is a global concern. Every year, millions and millions of tonnes of litter end up in the ocean worldwide, posing environmental, economic, health and aesthetic problems. Valuable materials are polluting beaches and damaging environments, instead of being pumped back into our economy.

Two of the EU projects the CPMR is involved in were also represented at the clean-up: the CleanAtlantic Project & the PANACeA project.

The CleanAtlantic project, co-funded by the European Union through the Atlantic Area Programme, aims to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Atlantic Area by improving capabilities to monitor, prevent and remove marine litter.


The PANACeA project aims to improve the management of protected areas in the Mediterranean to enhance and protect biodiversity in the region. It encourages a range of people and organisations working on projects related to biodiversity and ecosystems in the Mediterranean – including managers, policymakers, socio-economic actors, civil society and the scientific community – to cooperate, share knowledge and experiences.

 

View PHOTOS from the Beach Clean-Up on the CPMR Facebook page.

Watch the VIDEO of the Clean-Up below: