#Manawai

A team of freedivers from the Honolulu-based nonprofit organization Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project returned on Saturday from a 28 day cleanup expedition to the remote Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. 

A team from the Papahānaumokuākea Marine Debris Project, a Hawaiʻi-based nonprofit organization, returned to Honolulu recently aboard the 185-ft ship M/V Imua with another 53 tons (105,655 pounds) of marine debris removed from reefs and beaches of the islands and atolls within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.  

The team’s mission was to study ways to mitigate the spread of a newly-identified and fast-growing nuisance alga, named Chondria tumulosa, that they say is posing a serious threat to native species.