International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

The International Coastal Cleanup Singapore programme at Pulau Ubin collected annual data from Chek Jawa and in the process made another dent in years of accumulated trash on the shores of that precious marine environment. Determined volunteers huffed and puffed as they collected fine debris and dragged out tyres and long-abandoned fishing nets embedded in the sand and mud of Chek Jawa's shores.

Getting to the cleanup site at Chek Jawa means getting up really early! Volunteers had to get to reach Changi VIllage early where they waited to board the bumboats to the island. There they hopped on the eagerly awaiting Ubin taxi-vans in the village for that bumpy 15 minute ride to Chek Jawa! The advance team from the Raffles Museum's ICCS 'Otters' were even beaten to the first bumboat by an eager volunteer who had only recently arrived in Singapore from the US! 

Chek Jawa once was the site of a sizeable kampung village. Remnants of structures remain and the couple of wooden fishing jetties left behind jetty leg stumps. The stumps are now host to numerous abandoned fishing nets, some stuck deep in the shifting sands and mud. Not all are old though, and new nets indicate the continued dumping of unwanted nets by local fishermen. Nets trap and kill organisms especially the many species of crabs that make Chek Jawa their home. Horseshoe crabs are especially vulnerable and the indestructible nets wreak havoc on this endangered living fossil we are lucky to still be able to see in our seas. 

Forty blue drums irretrievably stuck in tangle of the tree line fronting the shore were proven to be extricable when volunteers bravely ventured into the thickets to remove a good number before the fast rising tide forced many to be left behind - this time! Less noticeable but easily outnumbering these large items were the omnipresent plastic bottles, styrofoam bits and plastic bags that plague our shores.

A conservative estimate suggests that we removed only 5% of the total load at Chek Jawa. Help to tackle this could come from small, low-impact, year-round cleanups as has been coordinated for some of the mangrove sites elsewhere. Tourists on NParks' special intertidal tours at Chek Jawa might be happy to contribute to this effort once they learn about the issue. A 30 minute cleanup exercise after the regularly-conducted tour would do wonders! 

Let's all think about a regular check-out of the marine debris load at Chek Jawa. And slowly but surely, we will relieve the ecosystem of the burden man has imposed for so many years.