Hike with purpose

Initiating an annual research expedition, in May 2019 a group of six hikers walked 210km between Blombos Nature Reserve and Wilderness in the Garden Route. Over the 11 days the team recorded in excess of 900 incidental sighting, conducted 45 Plastic Bottle transects and 39 'Dirty Dozen' transects.

We also hiked past significant Strandloper archaeological sites including ancient fish traps, the Point of Human origins and massive shell middens.

Meet The Team

Cleaning up with data

From regular beach hikes in the Garden Route it has become apparent that certain types of plastic pollution wash up at specific locations.

By accurately mapping the location of various categories of plastic found on the hike we were able to link it to possible sources.

Plastic pollution and fishing debris were documented using our Dirty Dozen transect, Bottle Transect and Incidental Sighting app in Cybertracker.

The next stage is to enter into a dialogue with respective municipalities and conservation authorities to take appropriate action to prevent future losses into rivers and the ocean.

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Awareness Campaign

One of the main reasons to conduct the hike survey is to document the plastic pollution and fishing debris along the route.

However knowing the rate of pollution is useless unless the information is made available to the public and authorities.

To raise awareness about our findings we had a concerted daily update of our progress and finding across all our social media platforms.

Monica from Landmark Foundation assisted by arranging for school groups to join us along the route and collect trash along sections.