For the second consecutive year, the fishing community of Malvan, along with environmentalists and multiple government agencies, has joined hands to remove heaps of marine debris, choking the biodiverse waters of Maharashtra’s Konkan coast. The latest cleanup drive, held on December 9 and 10, saw a team of 10 professional scuba divers and 12 volunteers retrieve nearly 650 kilograms of waste, including ghost nets, plastic wrappers, bottles, cans, and fibreglass fragments, from depths of up to 30 feet near Sindhudurg Fort.
The initiative, spearheaded by Vanashakti’s coastal wing Sagarshakti, was conducted in collaboration with the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), Mangrove Cell, State Fisheries Department, Malvan Nagar Parishad, Fisheries Survey of India, and local scuba divers’ associations. It marks the first drive under Phase II of the Marine Debris Cleanup Project, which aims to intensify efforts to protect fragile coral reef ecosystems and marine biodiversity along the Malvan coast.
“This is the second year of the drive,” said Nandakumar Waman Pawar, environmentalist and traditional fisherman who heads Sagarshakti’s coastal projects. “Last year, we conducted eight drives between October 2024 and April 2025 and removed nearly 3,000 kilos of waste. This year, we plan 10 drives—two every month—though we started late due to rough monsoon seas and poor visibility.”
The cleanup focused on high-impact sites around Sindhudurg Fort, a marine biodiversity hotspot frequented by tourists. Bhushan Juwatkar, a local fisherfolk and professional scuba diver said, the findings were alarming, “Several coral structures were found entangled in ghost nets, severely restricting their growth and threatening marine life that depends on these reefs for shelter and breeding. This starkly underscores how poor waste management on land eventually travels through drains, creeks, and rivers to the ocean floor, where it continues to harm ecosystems invisible to the public eye.”
The team clean the core areas around Sindhudurg Fort.
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The debris collected during this drive weighed approximately 400 kg from reef zones alone, with ghost nets accounting for nearly 60% of the waste. Other items included plastic bottles, metal cans, sacks, glass bottles, and fibreglass fragments from boats, Mr. Pawar said.
In June 2025, Vanashakti submitted a detailed proposal titled “Clean Shore Initiative — Large Scale Marine Debris Clean-Up Drive along the Coast of Malvan, Sindhudurg” to MPCB, the State Fisheries Department, Mangrove Cell, Malvan Nagar Parishad, and other stakeholders. The proposal seeks to build on initial successes by fostering community participation, raising awareness, and establishing sustainable waste management practices to protect marine biodiversity and local livelihoods.
The divers emphasised that marine debris not only threatens aquatic biodiversity but also impacts fisheries, tourism, and coastal livelihoods.
“Marine litter is one of the most pressing environmental threats of the 21st century,” Mr. Pawar said, citing global estimates that 8 to 12 million metric tons of plastic waste enter oceans annually, with projections indicating this could triple by 2040 without intervention. “Initiatives like this cleanup serve as both mitigation and awareness tools, reminding communities that what we discard irresponsibly on land ultimately returns as an ecological crisis at sea.”
Malvan, located in Sindhudurg district, is a tourism hub renowned for its coral reefs and marine treasures. The team wants to clean the core areas around Sindhudurg Fort and called upon citizens, local bodies, and policymakers to strengthen waste management systems and curb plastic use at the source.
“This successful drive stands as a strong example of community participation, inter-departmental collaboration, and science-backed action coming together to protect India’s precious coastal ecosystems. We appeal to the locals to join hands for this noble cause in maintaining healthy marine, coral rich ecosystem of Sindhudurg district which is the first marine century of Maharashtra,” Mr. Pawar said.
Published – December 12, 2025 09:30 am IST
