Training agency PADI and its conservation charity the PADI AWARE Foundation are aiming to have their Dive Against Debris programme adopted into the Global Plastics Treaty now under discussion by the UN’s Intergovernmental Negotiations Committee (INC).
If Dive Against Debris were to become an approved methodology for governments to use in monitoring and removing plastics from the oceans, it could influence data-driven policies able to change waste-management systems and plastics supply-chains around the world, says PADI.
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“This year we have an incredibly significant opportunity to turn the tide on plastics and are taking on the responsibility for being the voice for the ocean and the global scuba-diving community known as Ocean Torchbearers,” says PADI AWARE director Danna Moore.
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In March 2022, a resolution was adopted to develop an international legally binding instrument on plastics pollution, including the impacts on the marine environment.
Currently underway is the fourth of five INC inter-governmental sessions to negotiate the terms of this Global Plastics Treaty, calling for common international rules for plastics across their entire life-cycle. The final negotiation, INC-5, is set to take place in South Korea this November.
PADI says that a strong treaty will decrease substantially the rate at which plastics enter the ocean. It would also eliminate the avoidable plastics products that commonly enter the ocean and ensure that governments recognise the diving community as critical in tracking the impact of the treaty.
The agency says it is taking an active role in negotiations both by providing critical data through Dive Against Debris and by pushing governments to adopt methods to eradicate plastics pollution safely.
“The current desire to develop a binding Global Plastics Treaty presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put in place a legal instrument to end plastics pollution,” says Moore. “It also offers a major leap forward towards meeting PADI’s Blueprint for Ocean Action goal to reduce marine debris by 50% in targeted countries.
“PADI and PADI AWARE Foundation are the only organisations representing the global recreational dive community in the ongoing official negotiations leading up to the anticipated agreement of the treaty in 2025. By taking part, we are informing and influencing decisions that affect our shared blue planet.”
Dive Against Debris is the world’s largest citizen-science underwater marine-debris database, says PADI. Since 2011 it has been responsible for removing and reporting more than 2.4 million marine-debris items across 121 countries, with 70% of all items reported globally as being plastics.
PADI AWARE has trained and mobilised more than 100,000 citizen scientists to contribute to the database. In the process divers, snorkellers and others have released more than 35,000 entangled marine animals from human-induced marine debris, while influencing governmental policies at a local level, such as informing Vanuatu’s plastic-bags ban and single-use plastic policies in Australia.
If Dive Against Debris is included in the Global Plastics Treaty “we are prepared to work with governments to ensure that the removal of plastics pollution does not damage marine habitats,” explains Moore.
“Dive Against Debris is currently the only global debris-removal activity that does not have a detrimental impact on fragile habitats such as seagrass and coral reef and is an important component of creating positive ocean change.”
Help from Torchbearers
PADI is asking all its Ocean Torchbearers to help create positive ocean change by signing its petition, holding governments and plastics producers accountable by having the Dive Against Debris programme form part of the solution.
“Over the past three years in particular, PADI’s community of ocean advocates have helped secure significant wins for the ocean through signing similar petitions,” says Moore.
“In 2021 they helped us secure protection for mako sharks at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) and in 2022 they helped us secure the protection of requiem sharks at the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES).
“Now we are rallying the global community once again for 100,000 signatures so that we will be one step closer to a plastics-free ocean.”
The agency is also encouraging all scuba divers to get their Dive Against Debris certification and take part in underwater clean-up events with its dive-centres and resorts. “With an estimated 14 million tons of plastics going beneath the surface every single year, we need all the help we can get,” says Moore. Learn more and sign the petition.
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