The Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Mr. Narend Singh, will lead the International Coastal Clean-up Day (ICCD) at Cuttings Beach, on Saturday, 21 September 2024, in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

Annually, on the third Saturday of September, volunteers and environmental stakeholders around the world take part in the world’s biggest coastal clean-up – the ICCD. The ICCD initiative remains the largest global volunteer environmental data-gathering effort and clean-up event of coastal areas to date.

South Africa has over 3000 kms of coastline and some of the most diverse marine environments of the world. The benefits derived from the oceans include climate regulation, waste absorption, sustenance (sea food), economic development (tourism, seafood distribution), transportation (shipping), medicine (biomedical products from marine plants and animals) and recreation (swimming, diving etc.). In addition to this, estuaries are considered as a sensitive environment, due to their ecological uniqueness in terms of the ecosystem.

The ICC event is also used as the platform to address issues concerning coastal pollution as well as to stimulate change in the behavioural patterns that negatively affect the marine environment. This will be achieved through awareness campaigns, specifically through litter collection, educational talks and speeches outlining the initiatives that the department is embarking on in order to deal with the marine pollution issues.

This year’s ICCD will be celebrated under the Theme: “SEA THE CHANGE”.

Members of the media are invited to cover the event as follows:
Date: Saturday, 21 September 2024
Time: 09:00am
Venue: Cuttings Beach, Merebank, KwaZulu-Natal Province

To RSVP, please contact Paul Sigutya on 072 921 4457 / psigutya@dffe.gov.za or Kagiso Letsebe on 083 439 9755 / kletsebe@dffe.gov.za

For media enquiries, please contact:
Peter Mbelengwa 
Cell: 082 611 8197
E-mail: pmbelengwa@dffe.gov.za