KAMPOENG....Original from Indonesia: Nature- Indonesia

Recently, I often to post information or article about sea turtle, particullarly at Indonesia. If you don't know, sea turtle is the endangered animal at world. If you can count it's population, you can meet the number of San Marino population. Imagine this, we, human always complain about travel with far distance. Even the distance of 200 m, we always complain too far and we ride with car or motorcycle. But sea turtle is the animal which can make us, human, shame. Sea turtle can travels 20.600 km. Yes, you can shame now!
There is an example of that fact. A leatherback sea turtle, tagged at her nesting beach in Indonesia, has been tracked by satellite across the Pacific Ocean to the coast of Oregon and back. The satellite tag, deployed by researchers from the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, recorded at least 20.600 km over the course of 647 days before its signal faded.
Endangered leatherback sea turtles are the largest of all living turtles. In the Pacific Ocean, adult leatherbacks nest in the tropical beaches of Indonesia and Malaysia and migrate to feeding grounds off North America in the summer. In British Columbia, leatherbacks appear to be attracted by the large blooms of sea jellies that occur off our coast in the summer.

The turtle’s journey represents the longest recorded migration of any vertebrate animal. Even humpback whales, which make the longest migration for a mammal, swim at most about 8.000 km from the Antarctic to Central America.

All over the world, leatherback turtle populations are plummeting. The western Pacific leatherback turtle population has decreased from a thriving 91,000 in the 1980s to less than 5,000 today. The biggest threats to leatherbacks and other sea turtles include loss or degradation of their nesting beaches, direct harvesting of eggs and hunting of adults, and entanglement in fishing gear and marine debris.

Then, another fact about sea turtle, that sea turtle can attract us, human, to care with their. So participate at Nature Conservation with us. I joined with Greenpeace, you? DO IT!

I took this information based a letter from one man for Indonesian Minister of Environment. After I read that, I shock because my beloved country is the SEA TURTLE SLAUGHTER. That's sad because our people grew up with tradition to keep balance between human and nature. The sea turtle is just not ordinary animal. This species are rare at world. This species can keep balance of nature. So I hope Indonesia will change it's policy to save rare species.

And this is the letter...........

My name is Robin Marinos, a US citizen and frequent visitor to the beautiful islands of Indonesia. Earlier this year I videotaped the slaughtering of a whaleshark off Tangkoko Reserve. I campaigned against and witnessed the removal of the draw/trap nets belonging to EKASAPTA USAHAMINA. The closure resulted from the cooperation and aid of many concerned private individuals and public officials. This, plus the intense focus drawn upon the case from all angles to the top of the Indonesian government, resulted in the expedient closure after five weeks of continuous struggling. The success put an end to the devastation of the marine environment and its creatures around N.E. Suluwesi, plus added educational input for the marine conservation community and their cause to prevent such forms of devastational fishing.

I am sad to report that an even greater horror awaited me at Tajung, Benoa, Bali, where I recorded the most disgusting and cruel treatment toward any form of living being as I visited the socially accepted, uncontrolled, unmonitored green sea turtle trading and slaughtering pens. Some turtles were decaying with infections as they slowly rotted to their inevitable death, sometimes the torture lasting weeks before chosen to die normally as turtle steak or sate in a Chinese or Japanese restaurant. Others were damaged so badly that they were as good as dead. One even had one front fin torn off with only the shoulder bone showing.

The turtles demonstrated emotions as I moved around them. I couldn't help noticing the turtles, dehydrated and unfed for up to three weeks, spilling their last teardrops sometimes bobbing their heads off the floor as to plead for a little water. Ttheir captors stood on top of them to describe with bravado how they enjoyed listening to the turtles "scream like babies as they cut their throats". This is their ultimate fate after weeks of suffering. Much of this is clearly noticeable on the video taken.

The fact that it is traditionally accepted in Bali to slaughter and feed on the green sea turtle for only certain ceremonies one thing, but the uncontrolled and unmonitored methods of catching, handling, storing, and slaughtering is quite another. The fact that about one thousand (1,000) are sacrificed for ceremonial purposes per calendar year primarily on southern Bali seems bad enough, and that the officially accepted quota set four times that at four thousand (4,000) far exceeding the tradition needs seems too much. However the true numbers of well over fifteen plus thousand (+15,000) does not correspond to tradition needs nor adhere to legal conformity.

Furthermore, the legal shell length size of between 60-90 centimeters are the only acceptable sizes for this trade. During my uninvited visit to the turtle slaughter grounds, I stood there and measured the turtles tied appropriately in a praying position, front fins tied with cord, holes through the fins to prevent movement and to be lifted by. The largest measured approximately 110 cm., the smallest 55 cm from top to bottom of its shell. I estimate that at-least 40% of the 300-plus turtles were outside the legal size.

As admitted by the main trader and exploiter of this unmonitored trade, so called, 'Rasta' PAK Hasan, the turtles are caught and trapped all around Indonesian reefs, from Irian Jaya to Sumatra, using many fishing methods; a slight hint toward 'maybe yes' when questioned about cyanide and water-bomb (dynamite) fishing. The trader admited that he has no control of the fishing methods used by others who pillage reefs to catch turtles (sometimes as by-catch), later held in pens until arrival of the Bali turtle traders, normally costing 10-20,000 Rupiah per specimen (US$ 4.5 to 9).

Today, one can travel even the remote Island areas of the Indonesian Archipelago and find mostly ethnic Chinese and Taiwanese operating holding pens offshore and along the coast filled with many species of turtles and other large reeflife. This, I experienced from the Togian, Banggi, Tukanbesi Islands, to remote areas of the main Suluwesi Island this year. It leaves one to wonder really how many of these illegal holding pens really exist and to what extent this trade contributes to the damage to the marine ecosystems. One is left to wonder how much the turtle collection and trade being exercised irresponsibly daily contributes to the total reef damage. An example, three weeks ago a small ship was spotted by tourists now in Bali, fishing the few turtle left within the diving resort area of Giliair and Gilimeno, N.E. Lombok. Within the last year, there are at-least another three coastal areas in the Archipelago no longer sighting turtles breeding or laying eggs, all of those turtles born there have evidently perished!

As long as there exists a so-called quota, all forms of exploitation and manipulation, legal or illegal will persist and I believe, will get progressively worse. Further, the excuse of tradition has become weakened by the increasing availability and consumption of nontraditional foods. Not to mention that the turtle is supposedly "Sacred" to the Balinese people. Only five kilometers from the Tajung slaughter grounds there are signs displaying the Turtle and the penalties of up to 'one hundred million Rupiah' (US$ 42,000) for killing them. Without enforcement signs like these are meaningless!

Please help us stop these torturous and practices and join other nations who have placed an outright ban on capture, killing and trading of green sea turtles. All of Indonesia and the world will gain at the expense of a few selfish businessmen and their unrefined, uneducated, glutonus patrons.

Respectfully yours,

Robin Marinos
Friends of All Marine Life and Earth’s Ecosystems