Zhang Qian

zhqcindy@163.com

A NONPROFIT environmental protection organization in Shenzhen is recruiting volunteer divers to help clean underwater nets and traps in the Dapeng sea area. A cleanup is planned for April, according to the organization Dive for Love.

Diving enthusiasts who want to contribute to the preservation of the ocean environment can sign up for the campaigns. Nets are among the most dangerous types of underwater garbage, threatening coral and other ocean life.

Lin Xiaohui, a staff member with the NGO, said that they plan to organize 10 cleanups this year. The organization will need a dozen volunteer divers who are trained and certified.

Eligible volunteer divers are required to have good awareness of safety, as well as be familiar with the underwater environment and navigation system. Also, the volunteers will have to master performance buoyancy techniques, and the use of a surface marker buoy and an underwater cutter.

Dive for Love has organized six net cleanups since April last year, collecting over 225 kilograms of garbage on the seabed.

The monthly cleanups of fishing nets is part of what Dive for Love has been doing over the past few years to restore the ecosystem in the sea areas in Dapeng.

Last October, the NGO initiated a Coral Preservation Project that aims to build a coral conservation belt extending 100 meters in the waters of Da’ao Bay.

The NGO raised around 240,000 yuan (US$37,945) in last year’s “99 Charity Day,” China’s largest online fund-raising campaign run by Tencent, for the Coral Preservation Project.

Sea areas in Shenzhen once flourished with coral reefs. However, the coral cover has fallen from over 76 percent to 34 percent, due to human activity, over the past three decades, according to Guangdong Reef Check, an annual survey of the reefs’ condition, Sixth Tone reported.

The restoring procedure can take quite a long time to make progress. Dive for Love has enlisted 600 volunteers from all walks of life since 2014, joining groups that work on ocean conservation in the region.