Fishing rubbish found washed up on remote Cook Islands atoll

Members of the Cook Islands environmental group, Te Ipukarea Society, were appalled by the rubbish they found on a recent trip to isolated Suwarrow Atoll.

The northern Cooks island is a national park, a bird sanctuary and usually the only human presence there are two caretakers.

Te Ipukarea Society’s Kelvin Passfield said they had gone to Suwarrow to continue a rat eradication programme and to monitor the birds that breed on the atoll. But he said they were stunned at the quantity of abandoned fishing equipment that had washed up on the island, especially discarded fish aggregating devices.