Flood 2019 - Fox Glacier landfill washes onto West Coast beaches

The March 2019 floods here in South Westland washed away a lot of the Fox Glacier historic landfill and recycling station, situated next to the Fox Glacier river, and rubbish - including micro-plastics and agri-chemicals - are washing up every day on our once pristine West Coast beaches, from south of Fox Glacier to Okarito North beach.

This is now been named New Zealand's 'worst environmental disaster - ever'. Worse than the Rena oil spill. Funds raised will be used to help support our volunteers who are flying into remote areas of contaminated beach every day for the whole day - food, supplies, petrol vouchers etc.

This is home to Okarito Marine Reserve - 5.75 nautical miles of homes for seals, hectors dolphins, seals, southern right whales on their journey to and from breeding in warmer waters; Orca have been seen passing by; blue penguins, and the rarest of our kiwi - Rowi - have recently been released on Okarito North Beach; over 70 species of birds/seabirds including eastern bar-tailed godwits, banded dotterels, Kotuku (white heron), royal spoonbills, white fronted terns, mollymawks & threatened black-billed gulls. This feeds into the Okarito Lagoon - the longest natural wetland in NZ. UPDATE: we now have a dedicated team of specialists; DOC (including DOC wildlife specialists;) Maritime NZ; EnviroWasteNZ; local council; helicopter companies; and the crew who worked on the Rena disaster, as well as our invaluable volunteers to whom we would be lost! This money goes towards our volunteers - as they are not paid. Council have supported some food and supplies for them, but we would like to look after them the best we can.