ECO BARGE Clean Seas founder Libby Edge met with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Coca-Cola South Pacific and Catchment Solutions (Reef Catchments) on Thursday to discuss all things turtles and Eco Barge.
The entourage, which was made up of WWF CEO Dermot O’Gorman, national project coordinator Ian McConnell, Coca-Cola South Pacific CEO Roberto Mercale and Reef Catchments senior project consultant Rob Eccles, visited Bloomsbury cane farmer Scott Simpson before meeting with Ms Edge at Eco Barge HQ in Jubilee Pocket.
All three organisations are partners in Project Catalyst, an initiative that strives to reduce the nutrient, fertiliser and pollutant run-off on the Great Barrier Reef. Ms Edge said Thursday was an interesting day for the national visitors as the Whitsunday Turtle Rescue Centre was hosting students from James Cook University who were examining deceased turtles to understand why they had died.
Ms Edge then took the men on a tour of the rescue centre and briefed them on the Whitsunday Marine Debris Removal Program.
Coca-Cola South Pacific CEO Roberto Mercale looked on in awe and said he had great admiration for Ms Edge. “I like turtles and I like seeing such a young woman making a change – you can see the passion in her eyes,” he said.
Ms Edge said to date they have removed over 120 tonne of debris in the Whitsundays. On Friday the men travelled to Bowen to visit a turtle project WWF had been involved in for nearly 10 years.
WWF CEO Dermot O’Gorman said the project monitors turtle health and population size in the Bowen region and that they looked forward to assessing its developments.
Nerida Conisbee Ray White Group Chief Economist The latest population projections from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have just been released. While getting long term projections correct is notoriously difficult, the reality is that in the next 48 years we are very likely to have a much bigger Australia. … Read more
Nerida Conisbee Ray White Group Chief Economist The number of single people purchasing homes is falling but becoming more evenly matched by gender. Increasing cost of housing has meant that the proportion of single people purchasing homes is falling. In 2014, an estimated 26.2 per cent of purchasers were single. … Read more