On Saturday September 20th, employees from the FDEP Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection (RCP) traded their desks for the shoreline to take part in the 40th International Coastal Cleanup, hosted locally by Keep Wakulla County Beautiful (KWCB). This annual event unites volunteers worldwide in a shared mission: protecting oceans and shorelines from marine debris.

This week NCAP participated in the International Coastal Cleanup event held at Linda Peterson Park by the IFAS/Sea grant office on the coast of Hernando County. NCAP staff, and some staff from BBSAP, launched out of the Bayport boat ramp on the airboat to retrieve hurricane debris in the areas further away from where event volunteers on kayaks could reach.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Beach Debris! Fishy Fashions and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve is pleased to announce a special installation in our nature center. Fishy Fashions are marvelously inventive costumes made from flotsam and jetsam and assorted beach debris. This exhibition will begin with a kick-off event, “Fishy Fashion Show,” on Tuesday September 30th at 5:30PM.

On August 21st, the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves (BBAP) team worked with Miami Dade County’s Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM) to clean up the Coco Plum Mangrove Preserve in Coral Gables. The team did a tremendous job pulling all kinds of debris out of the mangroves, removing well over 1,000 lbs. of debris.