Marine Life & Conservation
Underwater Litter Picking In Cornwall

Litter is the outward sign of a lazy individual or community. Discarding litter shows total disregard for other people and the environment. As well as being unsightly it is causing havoc in the marine world. Animals are caught up in it, others feed on it only to die of starvation and poisoning. We have got to the stage where seeing discarded drink cans, plastic and other waste products are part of normal life.
Mark Milburn of Atlantic Divers in Falmouth Cornwall decided to do something about it. Each month Mark heads an underwater litter pick at different locations around the Falmouth area. I asked him how it all got started.
“Early in 2012, a few of my past students had contacted me; they had been struggling to find buddies to dive with. I decided to organise a social dive which I advertised on Facebook. Quite a few locals turned up as well as some of my past students. It was quite effective. I then made the decision to organise these social dives once a month, to give everyone a chance to get to know each other at their leisure.
During an escorted dive in June of 2012, while I was showing someone the delights of some of Falmouth’s shore dives, I noticed quite a bit of litter underwater at Swanpool Beach. I hadn’t realised that there was much before; was this new, or were my eyes now open? I almost felt ashamed, so darted about picking up carrier bags and shoving them in my drysuit pockets. The person I was escorting enjoyed the dive and was impressed with my litter collection. I thought to myself “I need to clean this up”. It would be a huge task but worth it. Later that evening I was wondering where to do the next social dive, Swanpool wasn’t the most exciting of dives, just easy and quite pleasant. Then it clicked, combine the two, a social dive to collect litter.
We set a date for August, a Sunday lunchtime so everyone could have their ‘lie in’. The owner of Swanpool was helpful and organised a press release. We received a call from BBC Radio Cornwall, asking if we could be interviewed on the Saturday. When we arrived on the Saturday morning for the interview, there were huge waves crashing into Swanpool Beach. Sunday’s weather forecast was good but this wasn’t ideal conditions for the day before.
It was Sunday, 12 noon, and there were quite a few divers in the car park. Some I had never met before, some I had known for years. I gave the pre-dive brief, explained what we were doing, what was expected, what we could collect and what we shouldn’t. I had used the Project Aware site’s litter picker’s guide for the Dos and Don’ts. Luckily the weather forecast was correct and the sea was flat, although the visibility didn’t look too clever. The divers entered the water as and when they were ready, after being pestered by Julie for their details for her diver’s log. As the divers floated off there were several shouts about the visibility, it wasn’t good. I just shouted to go out further.
An hour and a half later, all the divers were back out. There was a pile of litter to be sorted and categorized, before submitting to Project Aware. The litter pick had also coincided with BSAC’s litter picking effort, so we sent them the data too. We had collected 16kg’s of litter of varying types and everyone had enjoyed themselves, so it was well worth the effort.
[youtube id=”9dbrD-pcEgk” width=”100%” height=”300px”]
It was then decided to turn this into a monthly event. The next month we went to Gyllyngvase Beach and did the same thing, and I filmed some of it. One of the divers was actually a BBC reporter, and he liked the footage so much that he showed his boss. It was then shown to BBC TV who liked it and combined the litter picking story with a camera I had found six weeks prior to the litter pick. This is the story that did the rounds.
The following month we went to Castle Beach, in some rather inclement conditions. We had spoken with some locals who regularly cleaned the beaches; they did a surface pick while we went underwater.
Pendennis headland was our next target, our best turn-out so far, with 15 divers collecting rubbish.
Over the past few months I had been in contact with Beach Care, part of Keep Britain Tidy – they organise beach litter picks around Devon and Cornwall. We had arranged a combined event with Tremough (Falmouth University), where there would be both surface and underwater litter collections. Nineteen divers in all went in, a split of half locals and half students.
Our last litter pick of 2012 was conducted back at Swanpool. There was litter there but not in the quantity we had found originally, we had made a difference.
During the start of 2013, the combined easterly winds and freezing conditions caused us to take a break from litter collection. By May the water temperature still hadn’t really increased but we decided to have a go. The plan for this year is to keep up with the monthly picks but also to try and get people to pick litter during social dives. The first social dive at Gyllyngvase proved mildly successful; it gives us a base to work on though.
Marine Life & Conservation
IUCN Spotlights Green Fins at Bali Ocean Days 2025, Calling for Stronger Business Model in Marine Conservation

IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Global Ocean Director, Minna Epps, has spotlighted Green Fins Indonesia along with a call for stronger business models that sustain marine conservation. Speaking at the inaugural session of Bali Ocean Days 2025 held on 7-8 February, Epps emphasised the need for sustainable financing to support and scale marine conservation initiatives such as Green Fins.
Activities earlier in the week with the Coral Triangle Center in Sanur and Ceningan Divers in the Nusa Penida Marine Protected Area shaped the IUCN Ocean Director’s message at the conference and showcase, aligning with the theme of the blue economy and impact finance to sustain marine ecosystems.
“Tourism has such a big impact on marine biodiversity, and we need it to adhere to a certain code of conduct,” Epps said. “That is why through our funding facilities, we worked with The Reef-World Foundation advancing Green Fins so dive operators can become certified with standards. But this kind of initiative has been around for a long time and it’s also a tool used to improve [MPA management], but it needs to come with a business model. I also believe in market-based instruments to evolve this programme.”
IUCN’s visit is part of their Blue Natural Capital Financing Facility (BNCFF), which supports at least 21 projects around the world, building the business case for investing in the future of our ocean.
In Indonesia, the project supported by IUCN was developed in partnership with The Reef-World Foundation, the Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) and the Coral Triangle Center, which serves as the local implementing organisation for Green Fins. The initiative engages marine tourism businesses through voluntary sustainability certification based on the only internationally recognised environmental standards for diving and snorkelling operations. Green Fins’ activities aim to reduce negative environmental impacts associated with marine tourism activities as well as improve the management of marine protected areas.
IUCN’s promotion of Green Fins in Bali Ocean Days signals the need for greater private sector engagement in marine conservation across Indonesia and beyond.
Investors, donors, marine tourism operators and stakeholders looking to support scalable marine conservation solutions are encouraged to explore opportunities with The Reef-World Foundation, the international coordinator of the Green Fins initiative. To learn more about sustainable marine tourism and how to get involved, visit www.reef-world.org.
About Reef-World
The Reef-World Foundation is a registered UK charity which delivers practical solutions for marine conservation around the world. The charity promotes the wise use of natural resources – particularly coral reefs and related ecosystems – for the benefit of local communities, visitors and future generations. It is dedicated to supporting, inspiring and empowering governments, businesses, communities and individuals around the world to act in conserving and sustainably developing coastal resources.
Reef-World leads the global implementation of the UN Environment Programme’s Green Fins initiative, which focuses on driving environmentally friendly scuba diving and snorkelling practices across the industry globally. As such, the charity provides low-cost and practical solutions to local and industry-wide environmental challenges associated with the marine tourism industry. It provides education and capacity-building assistance to empower environmental champions (within the diving industry, local communities, authorities and governments) to implement proven coastal resource management approaches.
Visit www.reef-world.org to learn more or follow them on Facebook, Instagram and X.
About Green Fins
Green Fins is a proven conservation management approach – spearheaded by The Reef-World Foundation in partnership with the UN Environment Programme – which leads to a measurable reduction in the negative environmental impacts associated with the marine tourism industry. The initiative aims to protect and conserve coral reefs through environmentally friendly guidelines that promote a sustainable diving and snorkelling tourism industry. It provides the only internationally recognised environmental standards for the diving and snorkelling industry and has a robust assessment system to measure compliance.
Green Fins encourages and empowers members of the diving industry to act to reduce the pressures on coral reefs by offering dive and snorkel companies practical, low-cost alternatives to harmful practices – such as anchoring, fish feeding and chemical pollution – as well as providing strategic training, support and resources. By reducing the local direct and indirect pressures tourism puts on coral reefs, it helps make corals healthier and more resilient to other stresses such as the effects of climate change. Look for the Green Fins logo when booking your next dive trip.Visit www.greenfins.net to learn more or follow the initiative on Facebook, Instagram and X.
Blogs
Evolution of Manatees in Florida

Op-ed by Beth Brady, PhD, Senior Science and Conservation Associate, Save the Manatee® Club
Recent news articles and broadcasts have claimed that manatees are not native to Florida or only arrived on Florida’s west coast in the 1950s. These claims, based on limited anthropological records, point to where manatees were historically exploited by humans and assume that a lack of evidence means manatees were absent from certain areas. However, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence—it’s like looking for stars in the daytime; just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there. Moreover, genetic and fossil evidence indicate manatees have been present in Florida for the last 12,000 years.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), which manages Florida manatee populations, has created a manatee timeline highlighting key dates and notable information about manatee presence in Florida (https://myfwc.com/education/wildlife/manatee/timeline/). Historical records suggest that manatees have been observed in Florida as far back as the 1500s, with some details presented by the Florida Fish and Wildlife timeline aligning with evidence presented in the publication.
Manatee species, such as the African manatee and the Antillean manatee, continue to be poached by humans (Marsh et al., 2022). As a result, these species are difficult to observe in the wild and may adapt by foraging at night to avoid human encounters (Rycyk et al., 2021). This behavior could help explain why historical Florida manatee populations that were hunted by humans are absent from middens and rarely mentioned in historical accounts.
Further, the publication only briefly touches on the paleontological record and genetic evidence, which indicate that manatees have existed in Florida for a much longer period. Fossil and genetic evidence reveal a rich history of manatees in Florida. Manatees belong to the order Sirenia, which includes the Amazonian, African, and West Indian manatee species. While Sirenian fossils have been found globally, only Florida and the Caribbean contain specimens from every epoch over the past 50 million years (Reep and Bonde, 2006). The modern manatee, as we know it, emerged in the Caribbean about 2 million years ago (Domning, 1982).
The evolution of manatees during the Pleistocene epoch provides valuable insights into how environmental changes shaped their distribution and genetic diversity. During the Pleistocene epoch (2.59 million to 11,700 years ago), there were roughly 20 cycles of long glacial periods (40,000–100,000 years) followed by shorter interglacial periods lasting around 20,000 years. At the start of these warmer periods, Caribbean manatees migrated northward with the warming waters (Reep and Bonde, 2006). Water currents and thermal barriers isolated these manatees from populations in Mexico and the Caribbean, leading to genetic divergence. Fossil evidence indicates that Trichechus manatus bakerorum lived in Florida and North Carolina about 125,000 years ago but did not survive the last glacial period, which began 100,000 to 85,000 years ago (Domning, 2005). This subspecies was eventually replaced by modern Florida manatees.
This evolutionary theory is further supported by genetic evidence. Research indicates that Florida manatees trace their evolutionary origins to Caribbean ancestors that migrated northward over the past 12,000 years (Garcia-Rodriguez et al., 1998). A 2012 study by Tucker et al. reinforces this theory, showing higher genetic diversity in manatees on Florida’s west coast compared to those on the east. Over time, core populations migrated northward, with some groups moving south and east along the Florida coastline before heading north along the Atlantic. This migration pattern left the west coast population with greater genetic diversity, while the east coast population retained only a smaller subset. These findings suggest that the founding population of Florida manatees—arriving approximately 12,000 years ago—originated along Florida’s southwestern coast, which became the center of the state’s manatee population (Reep and Bonde, 2006). The process of vicariance further supports this hypothesis; as geographic and ecological barriers emerged, they likely isolated the Florida manatee populations from their Caribbean ancestors. This isolation likely limited migration back and forth between regions, fostering the establishment of local populations in southwestern Florida.
Manatees are not only a cherished symbol of Florida’s natural heritage but also a species with deep evolutionary and historical ties to the region. In sum, despite recent claims questioning their nativity, extensive fossil and genetic evidence confirms that manatees have been present in Florida’s waters for thousands of years, with ancestors dating back over 12,000 years. We agree with the authors of the published article that protecting these iconic creatures and their habitats is essential to preserving Florida’s unique ecological identity for future generations
Beth Brady is the Senior Science and Conservation Associate at Save the Manatee Club whose work focuses on manatee biology and conservation. She has her PhD from Florida Atlantic University and her Master’s in Marine Science from Nova Southeastern University.
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