Marine Cemetery


The Marine Cemetery is a monument located at Beypore beach in Kozhikode, Kerala, India dedicated to nine endangered marine and riverine species. It is made up of 2,000 plastic bottles that had been previously collected from the beach. It was opened in 2019.

History

The Marine Cemetery is dedicated to marine and riverine species which are endangered due to plastic waste, water pollution, climate change, and overexploitation. The monument is an awareness initiative.
In November 2019, a team of about 80 volunteers cleaned up Beypore beach, and collected over of plastic waste which they handed over to Kozhikode Municipal Corporation for recycling. 2,000 plastic bottles were left behind which were later used for building the monument. The monument was initiated by Jellyfish Watersports in collaboration with the Beypore Port administration, the authorities of Kozhikode district, and under the Clean Beach Mission of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. Climate change activist Aakash Ranison and his team built the structure. It was opened on 4 December 2019, the World Wildlife Conservation Day, by S. Sambasiva Rao, District Collector of Kozhikode, and V. K. C. Mammed Koya, MLA for Beypore constituency.

Monument

The monument has nine markers, each dedicated to an endangered marine and riverine species, built with plastic bottles encased in gravestone-shaped iron frames. Eight of these markers are in height, and are dedicated to the seahorse, parrotfish, leatherback sea turtles, eagle rays, sawfish, dugong, zebra shark, and the hammerhead shark. One of the markers is in height, and is dedicated to the endangered native freshwater fish species Miss Kerala.