jakarta's junk trashes aussie beaches

Wave of Jakarta's junk trashes Aussie beaches
THE beaches of western Cape York should be among Australia's most pristine but they have instead become the dumping ground for hundreds of tonnes of garbage from Indonesia.
The Courier Mail (Queensland)
June 22, 2005


By Malcolm Cole


While its beaches remain largely undeveloped, they suffer heavily from the effects of development in other parts of the world. In a 14km stretch near the indigenous community of Hapoon, north of Weipa, thousands of bottles, cans, thongs, syringes and other items litter the otherwise beautiful sand.

There are dozens of lightbulbs, tin cans, shampoo containers and even broken-up fishing boats.

Mapoon Mayor Peter Guivarra told The Courier-Mail the rubbish was carried by tidal flows.

"Anything that gets washed off the main street of Jakarta finishes up here on our beach," Cr Guivarra said.

Mapoon ranger Cecil Woodley and two colleagues have the task of collecting as much of the rubbish as possible in the area between the community and Janie Creek, 14km to the south.

But their task is like painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge -- no sooner is the job done than it needs to be started again.

"We can't do nothing much about this. It's pretty hard," Mr Woodley said. "Every year this happens, when the big tides come. Towards Christmas they come up here, washing everything up."

The tidal movement also brings to shore hundreds of "ghost" fishing nets, dragging with them thousands of fish and endangered turtles.

Most are lost from fishing trawlers but fishermen say others are cut loose when illegal fishing vessels are captured by Australian authorities.

Cr Guivarra said Mapoon residents found hundreds of endangered turtles -- including flat-backs and olive ridleys -- dead in the nets each year.

Removing the ghost nets from beaches was a major problem, he said.

"Some of those nets are a couple of hundred metres long -- you can't move them even with a car.

"You'd need a crane or a barge, and that's something we're looking at."

The Mapoon community is moving to protect turtle populations by building protective barriers around nests to keep goannas and wild pigs from eating turtle eggs.

Beginning this year, tourists will be co-opted to help with turtle-breeding and protection projects.

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