The town of Garcia Hernandez celebrated last Saturday the 23rd International Coastal Clean-Up with activities at coastal and some upland barangays highlighted by a clean-up.
About 100 countries participated the celebration. It is a global initiative started in 1986 by The Ocean Conservancy (TOC) and is celebrated by virtue of Presidential Proclamation No. 244 series of 2003 in the Philippines.
Bohol supports this activity through an Executive Order No. 14 series of 2004 - mandating the Bohol's participation in the yearly ICC.
Also participating was the Multi Sectoral Environmental Monitoring Body (MSEMB), a group organized by the Bohol Integrated Development Foundation, Inc. (BIDEF) through their project Partnership in Advocacy for Sustainable Environment Objectives (PASEO) now People's Response Advancing Initiatives for Sustainable Environment (PRAISE) in Garcia-Hernandez.
It was the group's fourth consecutive year in the activity since they were first organized. The group is composed of members and leaders of different sectors in the community such as the fisher folk's organization, farmers organization, the youth sector, women's sector, church, business industry, and the LGU.
A total 380 bags of trash were collected. And from some data cards gathered from the municipality of Jagna, it showed that they collected 47 bags of trash.