Visiting the beach with meaning: Take three – be there!” against marine litter!

Visiting the beach with meaning: Take three – be there!” against marine litter!

The current campaign “Take three – be there!” officially began today, May 19, 2025. The aim of the participation campaign is to motivate beach visitors to pick up three non-natural objects every time they visit the beach and dispose of them properly. This initiative is part of the Interreg6A project VaBene, which examines the impact of tourism on nature and combines existing activities such as clean-ups and natural history tours. North Frisia reports that The campaign also includes workshops on marine litter.

By integrating the Wadden Sea Protection Station's “BeachExplorer” smartphone app, users can digitally report their beach finds and receive small travel souvenirs in return. This app is available on both the App Store for iOS and the Google Play Store for Android. The Wadden Sea Protection Station emphasizes that The platform is also used to identify beach finds such as shells and fish eggs and allows users to report their own observations that are used for scientific evaluations.

Support from partners and prominent personalities

The campaign is supported by numerous partners on the North Sea coast, including the Wattenmeer Protection Station e.V., NABU Schleswig-Holstein, the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park Administration and the Multimar Wattforum National Park Center. Over 15,000 individualized information flyers were distributed in tourist information centers and visitor centers to draw attention to the campaign.

Prominent personalities from Schleswig-Holstein are behind the initiative and support its goals. These include Captain Heinrich von Holdt, author Katja Just, comedian Fresh Torge and Leif Bodin, MdB. This support is intended to help further raise awareness of the need to protect the North Sea, as District Administrator Florian Lorenzen emphasizes. Frank Ketter, managing director of Nordsee-Tourismus-Service GmbH, also praises the cooperation between tourism companies and nature conservation organizations.

Current challenges on the beaches

However, beaches also face challenges, particularly from marine litter, which has increased in recent years. Loud Wadden Sea protection station Corona masks and bottles of disinfectant can also be found among the waste collected. In recent years, the container ship “MSC Zoe”, which lost over 300 containers, has made its mark; the pieces are still visible on the beaches. This situation illustrates how important the current campaign to avoid waste is.

An accompanying competition until the end of September is intended to further raise awareness of the topic of waste avoidance. Quotes from experts including Dr. Nicole Schrader from NABU Schleswig-Holstein and Björn Marten Philipps from the Wadden Sea Conservation Station emphasize the importance of the campaign and emphasize how important it is to motivate guests to actively participate. Maike Otten from the national park administration points out the importance of the Wadden Sea and environmental education work.