Introduction

We’re all used to the shocking images of garbage and plastic floating in our oceans and washed up on beaches, but a much bigger problem lies beneath the surface. 75% of all plastic in the ocean eventually sinks down to the sea floor. Here it suffocates marine life, disrupts ecosystems, creates coral graveyards and is almost never retrieved… until now.

The Mission

In our second Planet Wild mission we partnered with Coral Soul, an organization fighting to save Spain’s La Herradura coastline from the discarded fishing nets and plastic suffocating the ocean floor.

Planet Wild members supported their work by funding two underwater scooters (aka. diver propulsion vehicles). This piece of specialized diving equipment allows divers to navigate strong currents easily, helping reach their destinations faster. Our community also funded one full month of operations.

Mission Video

Impact Update - Year one

Debrief

Our Partner

Marina Palacios

Coral Soul

Coral Soul is Marina’s passion project. Having grown up on the Spanish coast and seeing the coral destruction first-hand, Marina spent months living out of her van to support her work — diving deep underwater to remove fishing waste from the coral. When she started, 73% of the coral on the La Herradura was seriously damaged. In the face of political inaction she founded Coral Soul. The organization now enlists 30 volunteers including experienced divers who venture up to 40 meters underwater to carefully remove discarded fishing nets from the 400,000 year old reef.

Links

Arne S. · Aykut Özdemir · Max O. · Philipp Gérard

David Birch · Dennis H. · Doktor Whatson · Gabriel K. · Gerrit M. · Jens · Julia · Kai M. · Karsten Huth · Katharina · Kiran Wittmer · Luca Jan · Markus · Nikolas Padios · Patrick Knötzsch · Ralf Herrmann · Stephan H.