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Turning the tide on plastic pollution in St Helena and Ascension Island
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Researchers assessed the scale and sources of plastic pollution on St Helena and Ascension Island, two remote UK overseas territories that have designated their entire exclusive economic zones as marine protected areas. Despite their remoteness, both islands accumulate ocean-transported plastic debris, challenging the assumption that MPA designation alone protects coastal environments from pollution.
Plastic pollution is widely recognised as one of the biggest threats to the ocean. St Helena and Ascension Island, two of the UK’s most remote Overseas Territories (OTs), are custodians of vast ocean estates home to abundant and unique biodiversity. Their entire Exclusive Economic Zones were designated as Marine Protected Areas, in 2016 and 2019 respectively, to protect these valued marine and coastal environments: resulting in a cumulative 893,411km² of protected ocean in the heart of the South Atlantic. However, these environments, like those of many other small island nations, still suffer the pervasive impacts of plastic pollution: both from external sources and generated on the islands themselves. Currently, there are limited opportunities for people living on these islands to take positive action to protect their environment, resulting in a lack of community empowerment. The South Atlantic Plastic Project is a Darwin Plus and John Ellerman Foundation funded three-year project beginning in 2022, spanning across both St Helena and Ascension Island. With a focus on local actor engagement, knowledge-sharing and co-design, the project aimed to: perform a system mapping exercise to quantify and reduce plastic waste, creating a strategy to trial interventions for single-use plastic reduction and improve waste management efficiencies; research the characteristics and sources of plastic pollution and their associated threats to wildlife; and explore opportunities for international action through a new UKOTs and Crown Dependencies network.The project will conclude and results will be finalised by the time of the One Ocean Science Congress. Representatives of the project team will present key project outputs from the following: intervention work undertaken on St Helena following extensive community engagement; a study investigating the origin of single-use plastic bottle debris on both islands; research to quantify the prevalence and composition of anthropogenic debris found in brown booby (Sula leucogaster) and green turtle (Chelonia mydas) nests on Ascension Island; and an investigation into ingested microplastics by inshore marine species in the waters of both islands.It is hoped that the work undertaken on this project will serve not only as a catalyst to continue work addressing plastic pollution into the future locally, but will bear relevance to other small island nations in scaling of effective interventions and capacity sharing globally.Project team: Ascension Island Government (AIG), St Helena National Trust (SHNT), St Helena Government (SHG), Zoological Society of London (ZSL).
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Researchers found plastic pollution including microplastics in oceanic marine protected areas in the Southwestern Atlantic, demonstrating that protected status does not shield even remote open-ocean sites from contamination. The findings argue for pollution source control rather than reliance on protected areas alone.
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Despite beaches on Henderson Island in the Pitcairn group having some of the highest standing stocks of stranded plastic ever recorded, floating plastic densities in surrounding waters were found to be very low. This indicates that remote islands can act as accumulation traps for ocean plastic even when local surface water concentrations are not elevated.
Plastic litter in sediments from a marine area likely to become protected (Aeolian Archipelago's islands, Tyrrhenian sea)
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Researchers surveyed plastic litter in sediments near the Aeolian Islands in Italy, a marine area under consideration for protected status, finding microplastics in all samples at levels comparable to harbor environments. The findings show that even relatively pristine marine areas designated for protection are not immune to plastic pollution.
Marine plastics threaten giant Atlantic Marine Protected Areas
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Researchers surveyed plastic pollution across remote UK Atlantic Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and found beach debris increased more than tenfold over a decade, with plastics detected from the sea surface down to seamount depths. Plastic was found in organisms across the entire food web — from zooplankton to seabirds — indicating that MPA status alone cannot shield wildlife from plastic contamination.
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