India has a vast coastline of as long as of almost 6000 km exposed along the eastern and western parts. This hugely extended region, where three major water bodies – Bay of Bengal at the east, Indian Ocean at the south, and Arabian Sea at the west – meet, hosts a diverse coastal environmental set up incorporating a huge marine and coast biodiversity. Apart from this environment-biota assemblage, this vast region also hosts a great number of sandy beaches, many of which are quite famous. For example, Gokarna at Karnataka, Kovalam beach at Kerala, Marina beach at Tamil Nadu, Gopalpur beach at Orissa, Rama Krishna Beach at Andhra Pradesh etc. are famous tourist spots. Associated with these beaches, a huge population of people make their livelihood related to tourism. However, most of us, even the locals, forget that once the beauties of those beaches are gone, the entire tourism industry will collapse. It is therefore extremely important to conserve the surrounding of these beaches for our own as well as the survival of Mother Nature. Surprisingly, no big initiative has yet been taken by the local or Indian government for cleaning, maintaining, and developing of those beaches. A group of paleontologists and ecologists from the Department of Geology, University of Calcutta have decided to take the first step of this initiative and used their limited time and resources to initiate cleaning of a beach at Orissa. A total of five M.Sc. graduate and PhD students – Ms. Hindolita Chakraborty, Mr. Sandip Saha, Mr. Sayantan Sinha, Ms. Sahana Dey, and Mr. Krishanu Chatterjee – along with other members of the Department of Geology, University of Calcutta used their hands to clean a heap of plastic wastes dumped on a beach and gathered those together and placed them in a nearby trash dump bin. Moreover, they also supplied 40 micron degradable plastics to the nearby vendors selling different products to the tourists and requested them to ask the tourists to throw any waste inside the plastic. In fact, the team saw that it worked partially and at least 3 out of 10 tourists listened to the campaign and thrown theirs used wastes inside the plastic bag. Although this achievement is limited, this is just an initiative and should be carried forward with proper panning, funding, and care. The team is planning to make collaboration with other departments and local people to start this awareness initiative. Let’s make our beaches clean like it used to be and enjoy the beauty of nature. Let’s work together and make a team. If you think you can help us with your ideas and views please write us at [email protected].
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