Environmental terrorism in the Mentawai Islands

Environmental terrorism in the Mentawai Islands -

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Mentawai pristine reef - photo by Francesco Ricciardi

A strange undercover video released January 28 that shows coral reefs being bombarded for illegally catching fish off the island Siberut Mentawai triggered a massive movement that led to the support of major Indonesian government on the issue. This two-minute YouTube video spread like wildfire across networks of the surfing community, showing several criminalized fishermen throwing large quantities of ammonium nitrate house bombs to their boat in the water flow, explode and stun all fish near or in the life of the sea so they are easy to capture. This reef bombing, also known as blast fishing, is against the law in Indonesia and worldwide.

Unfortunately reef bombing continues as a widespread illegal operation used to quickly collect fish for sale dead or alive to national and international markets. The reports of witnesses on Siberut where the video was filmed saying there were 31 consecutive days of bombing reef with about 2,250 bombs exploded in this region alone. A second video of the group in question has surfaced showing dead fish, some with eyes blown by explosions that wash following the bombing reef just offshore.

In light of the creation of a source of illegal income, there are terrible repercussions to shell reefs. The estimates are 5-10 years for small parts of the reef to push, but if the bombing is allowed to continue many times in one place, it can completely erase a coral garden with no chance of regeneration, which means most home or food for fish and other marine animals. Many fish die in explosions not even been collected and simply sink to the bottom of the sea. It is also dangerous to those handling the explosive, which have been known to prematurely exploded in his hand.

Once a reef ecosystem is destroyed it kills that income fishermen in the region could have once done, and many tourist services operating around the fish and coral reefs. Reports indicate that the managers of these companies to use large vessels to communicate between fishermen and transport fish to the bombers should not leave an area. These boats are moving from a bombing site to another usually because they have exhausted the last reef resources.

Dialogue video short that the police, navy and coast guard stations, local tourism and government representative offices and more have all been contacted to witness the bombing in January, but nobody does anything about it. Since it has been downloaded, the video has created a huge chat and an online petition through www.change.org was launched simultaneously with the video that quickly reached 4,500 signatures. surf champion Kelly Slater and business magnate Richard Branson were among the supporters of the cause in 48 hours of video display. The petition against the Mentawai blast fishing was then presented to Mr. Abdurrahman Syahril, the security chief for sea fishing.

Five days after the video was uploaded and sent the petition, a meeting was requested from the petitioners and Indonesian CEOs of fishing, fishing safety and marine resources in Jakarta. Two days later, the groups were sitting under one roof to discuss the issue, quite the records in that obtaining government officials to quickly schedule a meeting and show. It was a sensitive issue that could potentially lead to a ban on Indonesian fish, so of course, the opportunity was quite serious.

At the meeting of the Fisheries Mentawai admitted failure and the police's inability such illegal practices largely because of equipment and insufficient resources. It was not always so; in 2005 an armed police unit was ambushed Mentwai five fish blasting boats, capturing one of them. Since only successful operation of new programs have been implemented to stop Blasting fish, but they were underfunded and given little attention so that illegal fishing has continued in recent years.

Another problem is that the resources of the government made the offer to such projects had been reduced from 150 to 115 days per year in 2013. The operational set was agreed that the government dedication the prevention of such activities was insufficient in western Indonesia over the eastern half where the world class diving sites such as Wakatobi and Raja Ampat had no defense against such harmful practices.

As the meeting ended the group had decided several positive programs. The greatest impetus came from the CEO of security for sea fishing who promised not to finish blasting fish but also turn the waters off the southwest coast of the island of Siberut, where the attack was filmed in a government-funded and patrolled Marine Park and the sanctuary at the end of the year. Until this marine park was created the group agreed to allocate more resources such as boats and fuel to the cause. They will also hunt down and arrest illegal concerned industries that feed ammonium nitrate for bombs and also shops selling fish Fish Blasting.

to advance environmental and ecological plans are not easy anywhere in the world. Indonesia is no exception and has its share of problems making it difficult bureaucratic support. The best way for anyone to help out is to sign the petition on the link below and help spread the word, especially to government officials, if possible, to make such dark fishing practices to light.

In the petition click:
https://www.change.org/petitions/stop-bombing-the-mentawai-reefs

For the first video "Mentawai Madness" Driver
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_81OhkhFXUc

The second video is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ljFFLcCevaM

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