Rescue & Protect Sea Turtles in Thailand and Asia

Dear Supporters,

I would like to draw your attention to what you don't see and therefore is ignored. 

Beneath the surface, hidden to the eye, submerged at the depths of the oceans, in the abysses where creatures live in the chaos of sunken debris, lies a dismembered monster. It gains territory like a parasite, suffocating the marine fauna and flora, occasionally providing an unnatural and temporary shelter - when not yet decomposing - and that becomes a trap to living aquatic beings... yes, I am talking about this calamity we humans have recklessly disposed of after, very often, a single use called plastic, and glass, and fabric, and polystyrene, etc. And accumulates to form a marine cemetery of debris when not endlessly drifting at the surface, aimless!

Participating in the 30th International Coastal Clean-up (launched by Ocean Conservancy) on September 16th in the Phang Nga region in southern Thailand, we were shocked by the amount of detritus brought in by the flooding tide! We braved the tropical rain and picked up as much as we could carry from the trash washed up on the beach to the detritus floating on the coming tide, even going down the pier onto slippery rocks. Passion, dedication, compassion and solidarity were driving our actions, as taking action is vital. Thai waters are home to numerous unique and precious aquatic species, among them sharks, kings of the sea, who witness the degradation of their legitimate habitat and suffer from it, powerless.

Now, if you follow the food chain you will quickly come to the conclusion that it also affects sharks as plastic invades their diet. Allow me to break it down: pieces of plastic exposed to the sun break down into smaller pieces to eventually become microscopic pieces, some of them invisible to the naked eye. Those pieces will indefinitely drift in the water until small fish ingest them by mistake. The microplastics will penetrate the tissues and enter their system. The same small fish will then be eaten by bigger fish until they end up in a shark’s stomach (or another species’) and slowly, painfully, hurt or kill them as internal injuries or starvation commonly follow the poisonous ingestion.The contaminated fish could also end up on our plates and intoxicate us.

Another danger for marine creatures is entanglement. How many times have I seen a turtle with a twisted shell after getting caught in a drifting net as a juvenile, when taking care of them at the rehab centre? Or, when scuba diving, sharks with a hook in their jaw and a fishing line waving as they swim away because of fishermen’s long lines? Ghost fishing is murdering hundreds of specimen as nets, lost at sea, continue to ‘fish’! Already being illegally massacred for their fins towards greedy purposes, sharks now face the threat of pollution in their environment.

Now, YOU can help saving them and by extension, us! Whether on land, on the water or under, you can prevent awful offal from reaching the sea by picking up and throw away rubbish when you see it. Pedestrians, swimmers and divers, we can all act to exterminate this insidious pollution and choose between two futures: will it be laminated and poisonous or nourishing and luxurious?

In 2011, Project AWARE launched Dive Against Debris, a citizen-science program, empowering scuba divers to collect marine debris from the ocean and report data on the types, quantities and locations of materials collected. It provides valuable information to help inform policy change. Choosing sustainability in your daily lives will force governments to adapt!

Follow the outcomes of CITES (Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species) - which 17^th Conference of the Parties (CoP17) happened between 24^th September and 5^th October in Johannesburg - whose purpose is to internationally protect the species we are threatening and slaughtering and needs us, world citizens, to support the decisions they make. Your voice counts and you can help the pelagic species to regain respect and shelter through Project AWARE’s #Divers4SharksNRays. Show the world your best shark smile!

Now off you go to be an everyday hero! Pick up rubbish whenever it crosses your path and you will save yourself, and the other living beings we share this planet with, by making our Mother Earth healthy and pristine once again. Every beach, shore and coastline is as unique as you are and needs to be protected.

And remember, teamwork makes the dream work!

With Gratitude,

GVI Thailand