Tristan : Keeping a World Heritage Site tidy: a clean-up on Gough Island
Submitted by Tristan Times (Sarah Glass) 12.11.2008 (Current Article)

The Gough Island Nature Reserve, along with Inaccessible Island in the Tristan da Cunha Group of islands, forms one of the United Kingdom's few natural sites registered with the World Heritage Convention.

Keeping a World Heritage Site tidy: a clean-up on Gough Island

The Gough Island Nature Reserve, along with Inaccessible Island in the Tristan da Cunha Group of islands, forms one of the United Kingdom's few natural sites registered with the World Heritage Convention.  South Africa thus has a special responsibility to keep the island as pristine and as little disturbed as possible in operating its meteorological station ashore.

In summer 2007/08 a visiting team of three, on the island to continue the eradication of the invasive plant Sagina procumbens, made a concerted effort to tidy up the immediate environs of the meteorological station in Transvaal Bay by removing and piling together redundant structures and equipment for return to South Africa.  The created pile contained rotten wood, rusted steel, aerial wire, written-off electric cabling and water pipes, broken trolleys, old sewage pipes and the like.

During the 2008 annual relief of the station in September the unsightly pile was loaded into 600-kg steel containers and the site swept clean, with the willing help of all the members of the outgoing and incoming meteorological teams.  The derelict crane lookout platform and associated steps on the cliff edge were dismantled a few days later with the aid of rope-access technicians contracted to work on Sagina eradication and added to the load.  At the end of the relief, six filled containers and two bundles of wooden planks were flown by helicopter to the S. A. Agulhas for return to Cape Town for disposal.  In all, the amount of rubble removed from the island weighed 4.5 tonnes, as measured by the ship's crane.

As part of the clean-up the no-longer used incinerator (known as the “smoky”) was cut off its base and taken to Tristan, where it is hoped it will serve a new and useful function to incinerate hospital waste.  Incineration of waste no longer takes place at Gough, and all burnable materials (paper, cardboard and wood) are returned to South Africa, along with plastics, metals, glass and used engine oil and chemicals.

It is intended to continue the clean-up work during the 2009 relief when a small shed and the fuel-pumping equipment it contains is scheduled to be removed.  This shed, situated at the base of the cliff in “Diesel Cove”, half-collapsed a few years ago under the onslaught of a peat slip and is no longer required.

John Cooper and Trevor Glass, Joint Tristan Environmental Inspectors, 2008 Gough Relief