“We know that when we protect our ocean, we’re protecting our future”

– President Bill Clinton –

The above-mentioned quote simply tells us the importance of oceans in the world. Do you know that our ocean covers 70% of the earth’s surface? And at the same time the majority of life on earth is aquatic? Interesting, isn’t it?

But do you know that in the recent past ocean pollution is greater than the pollution on land?

Covering more than 70% of our planet earth, Oceans are considered as one of the most important and valuable resources which influence climate change, helps in cleaning the air, providing a living for millions of people around the globe, etc. The Ocean provides shelter for many lives on earth, including microscopic algae to the largest mammal on earth; the blue whale.

This much of a dominant, beneficial resource is being destroyed by humans through choking plastics, carbon emission, oil leakages, etc. As humans, it is our responsibility to protect the ocean and its resources instead of polluting and destroying it.

We, as the International Service Avenue of the Rotaract Club of  University of Sri Jayewardenepura, took the initiative on protecting water bodies and aquatic biodiversity and making a positive impact on life underwater and as well as life on land through the project AQUATICA 2020.

The goal of our project is to safeguard the ocean, rivers and other water bodies, and aquatic biodiversity at present so that the future generation also can benefit from it.

Under AQUATICA 2020- Phase 1 we visited Induruwa Sea Turtle Conservation Center and cleaned the tanks and sea turtles and financially aided them to buy necessary items needed to reconstruct the place that was damaged due to heavy wind. We had a great time there, and we learned a lot about sea turtles as well. To fund this event, we organized a fundraising event by arranging stalls to sell iced coffee and brownies at Kimbulawala junction and our university premises. At the end of the day, it was a splendid and fun experience for all of us.

After completing that, we moved into a beach cleanup session collaborating with the center of beach cleanups in Sri Lanka. This was held at Mount Lavinia Beach. We cleaned wastages up to more than 10 garbage bags and made the place cleaner and nicer. We have also planned on conducting few more beach cleanups, in the future.

Since this is an International Service Avenue Project, we requested other Rotaract clubs abroad to be a part of Aquatica 2020 to make a global impact through our project.

We are happy and proud to say that more than 10 International Rotaract Clubs representing countries Tunisia, The Bahamas, Russia, India have conducted beach cleanups, river cleanups, awareness programs in their respective countries under our project and many more are yet to be done.

In AQUATICA 2020- Phase 2 which was named ‘Be a Pioneer of the Solution’, we used an attractive method to generate awareness with the assistance of creative individuals from all around the world.

We conducted the competition based on creative skills which was focused on convincing the requirement and raising the awareness on preservation of water bodies and aquatic biodiversity in their respective country/area while providing them a global platform to showcase their talents. The competition series was held under four categories; Pastel/ Watercolor Arts, Pencil Arts, Digital Arts/ Cartoons, and Photographs. The competition was opened to participants from all around the world.

Our main objective was to raise awareness on the preservation of oceans, rivers, other water bodies, and aquatic biodiversity while creating a global platform to exhibit and appreciate the talents of individuals from all around the world and save nature for a better future for every living being.

We had more than 200 entries from 41 Rotaract clubs representing 28 Rotaract districts in 17 countries, covering 5 continents. The results of the creative art competition were released on our official Social Media pages. We congratulate the winners and thank all the participants who took part in this amazing competition.

Have a look at the Art & Photographs Albums.

• Pastel/WatercolorArts

• Pencil Arts

• DigitalArts/Cartoons

• Photographs

Since we got the permission to work on this project physically, we again visited Induruwa Sea Turtle Conservation Center and Kosgoda Sea Turtle Conservation Project on 30th January and we were able to aid them financially to buy new pipes for the tanks with our Platinum Sponsorship by Wise Property Solutions (Pvt) Ltd.

We are happy and delighted with what we have done so far and the impact we have made on a global level. We will continue to work with the same enthusiasm and commitment to this project and make this project a success.

It is the responsibility of all of us to protect aquatic life. Aquatic life keeps us alive. If it dies, we all die. So, let us unite together to save the planet.

“No Life, No Water No Blue, No Green” – Sylvia Earle –

As the saying implies, it is our responsibility to save water and life underwater and the project AQUATICA 2020 is striving towards that goal with great power.

Written by Rtr. Srinath Udayachandran & Rtr. Nishmi Nishara