photoessay

My internship is at a non-profit organization called WiLDCOAST, located in Imperial Beach. Their mission statement says what they are hoping to accomplish; “WiLDCOAST protects and preserves coastal ecosystems and wildlife in the Californias and Latin America by building grassroots support, conducting Media Campaigns and establishing protected areas.” This organization and the people who work in it want to protect the environment as well as wildlife. It is a pleasure to work with this organization trying to do everything possible to keep our environment because all of this affects us in the long run. WiLDCOAST has many campaigns to show the people what they are trying to do and get the community involved in the work they are trying to accomplish. The Tijuana River is three fourths in Tijuana but one fourth of the TJ River is in San Diego, and the water flow from the river affects the public trails are no longer available for people to enjoy.



My mentor Ben McCue is a project manager at WiLDCOAST working on the trash flow from the Tijuana River into the Pacific Ocean. After rain, San Diego and Tijuana are impacted the trash washed down the TJ River, thousands of bottles, tires, and other kinds of trash travel down into the public trails in the estuary. We are three hundred feet below Tijuana so all of their Trash comes down to our side of town. Currently we are working on a campaign to persuade Officials to establish an incentive program in Tijuana that will make people want to recycle their plastic bottles, which is one of the major things that travels down with the river. Mexico uses more PET bottles than any other country, for the people to be able to recycle these items would be a great help and would reduce the amount of bottles that come down. “Deposit laws significantly reduce container litter and other types of litter”, before the deposit laws were made her in California, container litter was also a problem but as we can see today these laws do work and that is something that is needed in Mexico in order for things to get better we need to start at the root of the problem.



To get entire systems established in a different country a lot of research needs to be done on the US side to show a good argument on how things are run in the other country. Stephanie, Ben and I traveled into Tijuana for additional research; we talked to a woman who runs a recycling program and plant in Tijuana. We wanted to see what exactly they were doing over there to try and prevent al of these litter problems, and to see if we could help them in any way. We learned that they are trying to get the recycling programs in Tijuana to function but they do not have enough promotion, not a lot of people know that they can recycle, and Tijuana’s trash collection system is not fully in place either so it is hard for them to get people to recycle. The trash collectors and recycling companies do not have the sufficient funds to establish an effective recycling system in Mexico the way we have it here in California. We went to Tijuana to find out what the problem is over there so that we could then accurately brainstorm what needs to be done in order for them to have something completely new set up in their country.



WiLDCOAST reaches out to people through the media they are trying to show people that there are problems that could affect the health of the environment and also their own; they might not even know this is happening. WiLDCOAST is featured in news stories for different newscasters. What I think they try to do is show that there is a problem, and they want people to participate in their fight to a healthier safer environment. Very recently they had a story on Fox 5 San Diego news where they were warning people about the contamination of the water in IB, which could contain Hepatitis A. WiLDCOAST gave free vaccinations to anyone who goes into the water to prevent them from getting ill. WiLDCOAST is not just trying to promote their organization; they are actually trying to help people by telling the public about the harm that they face and what that they can do about it through media sources.

As intern at WiLDCOAST I have seen first hand how bad things are at the Tijuana River Valley. I experience the different methods they use to reach out to people or educate the public on problems that we are facing. Stephanie and I went out on Imperial Beach and conducted surveys with surfers or other people who had any water contact. The surveys attempted to find out how many people get sick from having direct contact with the water in IB, and what kind of illnesses they had. This information helps train nurses to look for specific symptoms in surfers or people with direct water contact who come in to report these illnesses; it also trains them to treat these illnesses. I found that this internship is all about communicating to the public the dangers that our environment as well as people face. My mentor Ben is already very good at doing this and with this internship my communication skills are getting better because we are sent out into the field to talk to people we have never seen before and we just have to go for it. You may not know the person but the information that we have could be very valuable to them.


Through surveys we conducted on the beaches in Tijuana, we found that of people do not know where to recycle plastic bottles. Through conducting surveys like these we find out how much the public knows about the problem or solutions to the problem. Many people don’t even know where to recycle their plastic bottles in Tijuana, and if they don’t recycle these bottles the problem will continue. Like My mentor Ben says, “Our ocean and environment have no borders”, they border fence will not keep things from Mexico coming into San Diego. The Border Patrol is not sitting around waiting to collect every piece of trash that crosses over, the ocean and anything that travels through it cannot be stopped or boarded out with this fence it is shared all around.

The two countries need to work together in solving this problem, because they are both affected by it. Mexico does not have the resources needed to establish a recycling system in their country, but we do have those resources here in California. The governments from both sides need to work together and help each other out; it is not benefiting one place more than the other because it is needed by both. First we will start of with educating the people, then we will ask for their help, WiLDCOAST is non-profit so a lot of people who help are volunteers. With many people being aware of the problems the better the chance is to fix it. The US has enough resources to help others, which in turn is we are actually helping ourselves. Working hand in hand to take care of this problem which is affecting the health of the environment, the wildlife, and the public.