Fancy doing your bit to help keep Dubrovnik’s coast and islands clean in exchange for getting better acquainted with more secluded parts of the environment?
As Dubrovniknet.hr writes on the 21st of August, 2018, apart from the glorious history of the former Dubrovnik Republic, the developed tourism from which the whole of Dubrovnik lives better than the Croatian average is also thanks to the incredible nature, the sea and the islands.
Sadly, we’ve witnessed how tons of rubbish manages to reach our beaches in the winter many a time. The whole of Croatia was disgusted and shocked with the horrendous footage of rubbish which had unfortunately found its way with the currents to Dubrovnik last winter, not to talk about the potential state of the numerous beaches and bays in and around the city that are not so easily accessible.
The cleaning of such locations can only be performed by boat, which poses yet another difficulty. Since this summer, the Green Sea Safari has been taking proper care of such areas, creating an imaginative and environmentally friendly, not to mention free excursion for both like-minded locals and tourists who want to volunteer some of their time to help keep the coast clean, followed by swimming in less crowded, more secluded locations.
“Green Sea Safari is a non-profit association founded a few months ago and its only purpose is to collect rubbish from islands and bays which are unaccessible, and where nobody else cleans up,” says Maro Carević, one of the founders of the association.
“Twenty actions have been done so far, and in each action we’ve collected between 15 and 30 150 litre rubbish bags full. We started from Kalamota (island of Koločep), which is now practically cleaned up. You can never clean absolutely everything but we collect as much as we can.”
More original yet, Green Sea Safari is designed so that tourists can join also join. The boat leaves at 9:00 in the morning from Gruž, after which an area to be cleaned up that day is chosen. After the cleaning, the collected rubbish bags are taken to Suđurađ or Donje Čelo, after which, the relaxation starts.
The amount of harmful plastic and other rubbish that is just lying around in our immediate environment is truly astounding and such actions deserve the utmost respect and gratitude.
Among the tourists who have done their part in cleaning so far, the French, Dutch and Scandinavians appear to be the most forthcoming when it comes to protecting and preserving the environment and nature, but there have been people from all over the world and from all walks of life. Foreigners tend to know immediately what’s going on when it comes to such things, because in their countries, similar concepts often already exist.
A boat from Gruž goes almost every day, Saturday is left free for companies and organisations which might want to take advantage of such opportunities for team building and similar exercises.
