i’ve been traveling for a while now. experiencing the good, and experiencing the bad. i remember the first time i went to the mentawai islands in indonesia 14 years ago. i put on my mask and took a look around. i was wondering why the reef was so ugly, flat and dead. i was swimming around for an hour thinking to myself “there’s no fish here!” nothing hit me back then. 3 years after that, i went to the philippines. same thing, i swam around and seen only dead reef and no fish. then one morning, i was looking to check the waves and i seen an explosion. a deep “BOOOOOM.” then a local fishing boat near by. what happened? did the boat explode? come to find out, that’s how some people in the philippines fish. yeah, they blow up the reef, then rush over to pick up the dead fish. other techniques is to poison the fish with cyanide but i’ll get into that later. so as the years went by and my multiple visits to the philippines and indonesia, i’ve first hand experienced fishermen blowing up the reefs, and i’ve first hand seen the reef after it’s been blown up. i haven’t had the chance to take photos of it because it happens so fast.
then matsu sends me this youtube video of a surfer in the mentawai actually filming the explosions. i watched it and was sick to my stomach.
i’ve seen this so many times and described it to many of my friends in hawaii. nobody believed me and i don’t blame them because it’s unbelievable. a guy filmed 5 minutes and there were 5 explosions. this happens all day long every day of the year. it’s pretty sad.
i hope this video goes viral and the whole world watches it. the only bummer thing is that nothing good will probably come out of it. the law enforcement in third world countries are pretty corrupt and i’m sure these fishermen are feeding the corrupt. as for the future generations, in these countries, i’m not sure what to say.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_81OhkhFXUc[/youtube]
