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Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

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Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#181

Post by huurtehoog »

markdown wrote: post #132
wraptile wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I am trying to understand if the government is still largely to blame or not? all blast fishing is a failure of governance so I'd say yes but the fishing cultures here in SEA are so different from anywhere else in the world so it's very hard to govern without strong central body. Lots of cultural, religious, poverty and spiritual stuff mixed into all of that which really complicates things. IMO Thailand has a m…

While it's hard to regulate fishing when your country is made up of endless islands, it's quite easy to regulate dynamite. So no, I don't think the number of islands is an excuse. In Fiji, for example, no fisherman could get dynamite if they wanted it. The only way to get that is if you run a (very heavily regulated) mine, or a quarry, and you'd have to account for every blast.

If you think islanders are not adept at contraband, you should read more, or better, history books.

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#182

Post by izacus »

mc3301 wrote: post #151
ColdStream wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is easy thus people will do it. Convenience is the single most potent drug we have ever invented. Man kind - If we can, we will.

Or avoiding starving.

Noone who can buy dynamite and a boat is starving.

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#183

Post by saberience »

tomasphan wrote: post #117
adjejmxbdjdn wrote: post #112

We need to stop our obsession with exploiting animals. It’s leading us to do insane things damaging our own health and the environment, nevermind how much suffering it’s causing the actual sentient beings we’re using.

This is not an obsession with hurting animals. It’s survival and earning a living for these Indonesian fishermen. To incentivize them to stop you have to give them better options. In this case, teach a man to not fish with explosives and you’ll feed him for the rest of his life.

Except if you keep bombing the corals eventually there will be no fish for anyone, since the reefs are keys to the ecosystem being sustainable in the long term. If you kill the reefs there will be no fish and no fish in the future.

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#184

Post by chasd00 »

lmz wrote: post #135
markdown wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's hard to regulate fishing when your country is made up of endless islands, it's quite easy to regulate dynamite. So no, I don't think the number of islands is an excuse. In Fiji, for example, no fisherman could get dynamite if they wanted it. The only way to get that is if you run a (very heavily regulated) mine, or a quarry, and you'd have to account for every blast.

Does it have to be dynamite or are other, improvised explosives possible?

Ammonia nitrate (fertilizer) + diesel + a blasting cap is what was used in the Oklahoma City bombing iirc.

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#185

Post by Gravityloss »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
pingou wrote: post #5

"With a bomb dropped once every 62 minutes, the equivalent of three football fields of reef are destroyed each year, according to Williams." That doesn't sound right.

I love the American measurement units. How many bald eagles of explosives are needed to destroy three football fields worth of reef?

Ah, but minutes (or an hour) don't have any context to a person. "A bomb dropped every two thirds of the duration of a football game, excluding breaks". No, that sounds too mathy. Perhaps "three bombs per two games".

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#187

Post by bamboozled »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #144
bamboozled wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is good about metric is that once you have a good feel for different lengths of mm, cm,meters and kilometres you don’t need to worry about things like “10 Super Bowl stadiums”. You can easily extrapolate what 27km2 means, it doesn’t have to “look like” anything.

That really isn't true. You in particular may be good at such extrapolation, but people as a rule are not. They need a concrete example to relate back to.

I cycle a lot and you get a very good feel for what 20kms feels like guess, so maybe you’re right.

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#189

Post by 21asdffdsa12 »

ghm2199 wrote: post #70
wraptile wrote: post #51

I'm a scuba diver here in Thailand and you can still see blast fishing damage from decades ago that never fully recovered. It's truly as terrible as the article makes it out to be. What is interesting is that both Indonesia and Thailand have strong and similar anti blast fishing laws since early 00s that charge 5+ years of prison time. However, Thailand has been much more successful with taming blast fishing which is…

Is it just a matter of incentives by the government in indonesia? Like is it that bomb fishing in indonesia is incentivized because of, for example, profit margins in fishing vs say tourism? I know you mentioned Indonesia never got the yellow card it should have and that certainly creates less incentives for them to straighten their act. But I am trying to understand if the government is still largely to blame or not…

Its a cultural- my family first, the rest of the world distant second. Seems to get you desert wherever that culture goes.

Re: Bomb fishing is wreaking havoc on Indonesia's coral reefs

#190

Post by throwaway2037 »

Honest question: How many boats are actually doing this? It might just be one or two, but they are on the water 300+ days per year, and "bombing" for 12 hours a day. I think just one or two boats could do a huge amount of damage. Also, it seems pretty easy to fix this problem: Offer a reasonably large financial reward for information that leads to the arrest/conviction of captains of bomber boats. Probably the workers on those boats are paid very low wages. If you offer the equivalent of one year of earnings for the tip, you can probably catch the captains very quickly. Even better: Pass a law to take possession of the boat from these captains/owners. Then the workers can buy/rent the boat with the reward money and get back to work.
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