SDG 14 Life below water - Open Development Mekong

Thailand ‘Prostituting its Resources,’ Says Top Nature Photographer

saowalakj — Tue, 11 Jun 2019 01:42:27 +0000

As one of Thailand’s foremost marine conservation photographers, Sirachai “Shin” Arunrugstichai sees on a daily basis dead baby sharks discarded as trash by fishing trawlers, tourist speedboats crushing coral, and dead whales cut open and full of plastic.

“We are prostituting our resources for others to use,” he said. “We are eating the world to extinction right now.”

But despite Thailand’s bleak environmental situation, Shin says social media is offering glimpses of hope this World Oceans Day.

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Vietnam Sea and Island Week launched in Bac Lieu

saowalakj — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 01:03:31 +0000

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu held a ceremony on June 1 to launch Vietnam Sea and Island Week and Action Month for the Environment in response to World Oceans Day and World Environment Day 2019.

Speaking at the event, Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung urged ministries, agencies, localities, socio-political organisations and people of walks of life to get involved in protecting sea and island environment in line with the strategy on sustainable development of marine-based economy till 2030 with a vision to 2045.

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Hope stirs with every turtle hatchling

saowalakj — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 02:38:33 +0000

An old friend of Thailand has returned from the sea, but vast drifts of plastic block more leatherback turtles from coming ashore to spawn.

The news from Kuek Kak Beach on the Phang-nga coast in mid-February delighted marine ecologist Dr Thon Thamrongnawasawat as twenty newly hatched leatherback turtles had clawed their way out of their sandy nest and made it to the sea.

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Cambodia’s Endangered River Dolphins at Highest Population in 20 Years

saowalakj — Tue, 09 Apr 2019 01:40:05 +0000

For decades, Cambodia’s Mekong River population of Irrawaddy dolphins has verged on extinction. Once believed to have numbered in the thousands, the population began to plummet in the 1970s. During the violent reign of the Khmer Rouge and the years of war that followed, the dolphins were hunted for food. Indiscriminate net fishing, in which the dolphins sometimes end up as bycatch, took a further toll, and by the turn of the millennium, there were maybe fewer than 100 left.

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The post Cambodia’s Endangered River Dolphins at Highest Population in 20 Years first appeared on Open Development Mekong.