Net Impact presents Dave Weeshoff from Algalita Marine Research Foundation
January 20th at 7:30PM in Noyes 153
Snacks and drinks provided.
Heard of the North Pacific garbage patch ? What about Capt. Charles Moore?
Come learn from the people who discovered it, what effects plastics have on the marine life. Find out what you can do to reduce your plastic footprint!
Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) is a Long Beach, California-based non-profit marine research and education organization. Charles Moore founded AMRF in 1994 to focus on the “coastal ocean”, specifically on the restoration of disappearing giant kelp forests and the improvement of water quality through the preservation and re-construction of wetlands along the California coast.
In 1997, his focus dramatically changed. While returning to California from Hawaii aboard his 50-foot catamaran, the Alguita, he chose to chart a course through the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. This area of the Pacific is a circulating rotation of ocean currents and is normally avoided by sailors due to its light winds. In the eastern portion of the Gyre he encountered enormous amounts of trash, mostly plastic, scattered across the area. Now commonly referred to as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it is a vast plastic soup (from the surface down through the water column) containing everything from large abandoned fishing nets (ghost nets) to plastic bottles, bottle caps, toothbrushes, containers, boxes, to miniscule particles of plastic that have either been reduced from larger pieces by wave action or sunlight (photodegradation).
Since 1997, Captain Moore has made numerous research voyages to the Gyre aboard the ORV Alguita, resulting in a body of authoritative research publications and data and educational programs. During the most recent voyage in the summer of 2009, AMRF’s area of study extended to the International Date Line which revealed more of the same – plastic sludge in our trawl samples.
On January 20th, David A. Weeshoff will speak to us regarding AMRF research. David A. Weeshoff is President of the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society, and is on the Board of IBRRC. He was a South Coast Regional Stakeholder, representing birds, in the implementation of the California Marine Life Protection Act. He speaks frequently on environmental issues relating to the marine environment to groups of all ages.
More about the founder of Algalita, Capt. Charles Moore, can be found here: https://www.algalita.org/about-us/bios/charles.html
Event is sponsored by Tom Mannion, CIT Sustainability office, and the GSC.
Hope you can make it! Bring friends.
_Net Impact
