The tourism industry keeps beaches clean in Mozambique.

In this study, we conducted the first assessment of the litter abundance, diversity and predictors in Mozambique, by collecting approximately 2 tons of litter along six beaches across the country. We tested whether population, touristic industry, fishing, and recreation activities predict the quantity of macro litter for each of the 11 types and 141 subtypes of litter. Overall, we found that plastics made up 60.1 % of the items across all sampled beaches. Following plastics, clothing objects accounted for the second most weight (20.4 %) while foam objects were the second most abundant (15.7 %). More importantly, our results show that the tourism industry is a strong predictor for lower levels of litter across most types of litter while population density and fishing activity were strong predictors for higher levels. Our findings suggest that the tourism industry plays a crucial role in the country by maintaining the beaches clean.