All posts tagged: mangroves

Plastic Free Cayman: Beach Cleanup to help the Mangroves

‘Plastic Free Cayman’, in collaboration with ‘Red Sail Sports Grand Cayman’ has been making a positive impact with their community beach cleanup initiative in the Cayman Islands.  Living in paradise, presents us with a moral responsibility as custodians of the beautiful Caribbean Sea filled with biodiverse coral reefs surrounding our island, to protect them and to keep plastic out of the ocean.  Since the inception of Plastic Free Cayman’s community cleanups over the last 7 months a whopping 7,583lbs of trash has been collected from various locations around our small island.  In February alone, 2,500lbs was collected at Safehaven.  In March, 1,000lbs of trash was collected by over 100 volunteers and local Cadets at the cleanup at Gun Bay.  In addition, JUNK joined the initiative by kindly collecting all recyclables. Protecting the Mangroves   The next community cleanup is set for 21st April, at 8:00am, at Turnberry Drive, to focus on removing plastic waste found near the mangroves.  If you have a paddle board or kayak you can take part in joining volunteers paddling out …

Where The Mangroves Grow…

Mangroves are integral to our ecosystem as they provide a home to juvenile fish, baby turtles and baby lobsters, as well as the West Indian Whistling Duck, White Egrets and our national icon, the Cayman Parrot.  Mangroves not only provide a safe area for fish, crustaceans and birds it also acts as a natural sea wall or barrier protecting our coastline during hurricanes and other storms which pass through our waters.  Perhaps an overlooked benefit of the mangroves is the fact that our Central Mangrove Wetland contributes to rainfall which largely graces areas like George Town and West Bay, which is “40% greater than in the eastern districts” and without this rainfall those areas would not be as blessed with an abundance of healthy trees and vegetation, instead would be dry and have poor soil (National Trust).  The Central Mangrove Wetland covers a total of 8,500 acres, and in a sense it can be considered as our version of a rainforest so to speak.  The Central Mangroves Wetland acts like a rainforest by saturating the …