I recently visited Manado, Indonesia on a SCUBA break and was horrified to discover that two high tech wall nets have been installed in the pelagic migratory channel. Inside informants report a 10 1/2 month catch of:
1,457 Mantas, 577 pilot whales, 789 Marlin, 326 sharks, 326 dolphins, 84 turtles, 9 dugong
all of which are destoyed for resale. The local authorities are turning a well-paid, blind-eye to the whole affair. Others are taking advantage of the lax enforcement of environmental regulations in the area and are harvesting the reefs at night and planning to build hotel lodging virtually on top of the once famous Bunaken Wall Reef.
We will be exposing what we know, along with an amatuer video showing the slaughter of a whale shark, at the Asia Diving Exhibition and Conference (ADEC) in Singapore May 16-20.
A vacationer-turned activist, Robin Marinos, has been collecting details while trying to put an end to this slaughter. He's even attempted to organise an attempt to cut away the nets from their moorings. It seems some ex-military intelligence officers (4 star & 3 star generals) have formed this fishing venture with the help of satellite pictures of the migration paths (this is what we believe but has yet to be verified -- all else has been verified).
Robin will arrive in Singapore this week for our thrown together ADEC campaign. I thought we might be able to organise a campaign to stop the use of the devastational method of fishing which I believe is banned internationally. (I am still trying to find out Indonesia's position on the matter. -- there is a possibility that the corruption goes farther than Manado but we don't know yet and hope not.
The Indonesian government should be encouraged to enforce the world wide ban on wall net fishing.
Steve Morris