The world’s oceans are increasingly becoming a reservoir of anthropogenic products of the modern world. From pesticides to plastics, to fertilisers, oil, solid garbage, toxic chemicals and sewage. The waste we produce on land eventually reaches the oceans, either through deliberate dumping or from run-off through rivers and drains.
Allied with these are activities such as over-fishing and increased rates of sedimentation and nutrient in-flows into coastal waters, the introduction of exotic species from ballast water discharged from ships as they ply the world’s oceans, habitat destruction and climate induced changes to both the biotic and abiotic components of marine ecosystems. The list seems endless!
UVNSW is a coalition of community organisations provided with adequate training, quality assurance and quality control procedures to provide government agencies charged with managing NSW’s marine environment with reliable data to inform management decisions that will be used to ameliorate some of the problems discussed above. The activities undertaken by UVNSW members develop a sense of stewardship in their ‘local patch’ and through their actions aims to raise community awareness of marine conservation issues along the increasingly urbanised NSW coastline.
The Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority (now the Hunter Local Land Services), working with the National Marine Science Centre, Southern Cross University, provided seed funding for UVNSW. A steering committee convened to oversee the activities of UVNSW and was comprised of representatives from community organisations, government agencies and staff from the National Marine Science Centre.