A Dream for a Better World

By-catch is a term used to describe any marine creatures other than those targeted that get entangled in fishing nets or unwittingly bite onto fishing hooks.  Millions of sea creatures such as whales, dolphins, crustaceans and turtles are caught each year in tuna nets or hooks and then thrown dead back into the oceans.  Efforts are underway to come up with solutions to eradicate accidental by-catch as much as possible.  In Indonesia, activists and tuna fishermen are cooperating with emphasis to save the turtles.  When catching tuna, Indonesian fishermen use fishing lines up to 100 km long strung with 2,000 j-shaped baited hooks.  While snatching the bait, turtles accidentally swallow the hooks and die an agonizing death because they can’t reach the surface to breath.  The WWF and the fishermen have experimented using large, rounded hooks that have proven to be successful.  The hooks are too large for the turtles to swallow but yet at the same, tuna is caught.  Under this new method, it is estimated that 89% fewer turtles were caught.  Of the turtles that did bite, about 95 per cent could be saved and survived.

When we talk about deforestation, must of us think about Brazil, and the Amazon rainforest? But there are other places in the world where the rapid deforestation is causing serious damage to wildlife and possibly the climate as well. Indonesia is a prime example, where the orang-utan, one of the most endangered animals in the world, is quickly losing its habitat to deforestation. We need to remember that the Amazon is not the only rainforest in the world that is being stripped for the sake of progress. But can we truly call it progress when damage our future for the sake of commercial or individual benefit?