Heidi J. Auman

Hello! My name is Dr Heidi Auman and I am a seabird biologist. I've studied human impacts on seabirds for most of the past thirty years. A pioneer on the research of plastics ingestion, I lived on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in 1993–2000, studying the effects of marine debris and contaminants on Laysan albatross. I have also explored plastic ingestion in subantarctic and Tasmanian seabirds, chemical pollutants in Great Lakes birds, and the effects of junk food on urban gulls. I've demonstrated that our ecological footprint has reached the farthest corners of the earth, often with disturbing consequences.

I hope that you read my book and act. You are the role models – others watch you as you clean beaches and sort your rubbish, and they may be inspired to change their own behaviours as they see you take responsibility. With every choice that you make, you can create a better world. Keep inspiring others!

You are the teachers – you show others how their rubbish affects the environment, wildlife and us. You teach others how to recycle and cut down on mindless consumerism. Reduce, reuse, recycle, but most importantly, refrain from buying and using single-use plastics in the first place!

Finally, you are the leaders – you are the ones are finding solutions to marine pollution and changing the way we relate to our planet in healthier, more sustainable ways.

Here are a few dismaying facts about marine debris worldwide:

• Marine debris poses a huge and growing threat to marine and coastal environments. Around 8 million items of litter enter the marine environment every day, representing 7 billion tonnes of plastic littering the ocean every year.

• It is estimated 3 times as much rubbish is dumped into the world’s oceans each year as the weight of fish caught.

• At least 77 species of marine wildlife found in Australian waters and at least 267 marine species worldwide are affected by entanglement in or ingestion of marine debris, including 86% of all sea turtles, 44% of all seabirds and 43% of all marine mammals.

• Other threats to wildlife and ecosystems include destruction or smothering of sea beds, accumulation of toxic substances and the transportation of invasive species.

All that is rather depressing, isn’t it? But it inspired me to write my book ‘Garbage Guts’…

I hope you enjoy my book and pass along the conservation messages to your friends and family. The more we raise awareness about the problems that marine debris creates, the sooner we can clean up this global tragedy together.