Here are two videos that we would like to show you:
The first is a study Thomas Goreau made in 2006 showing the disastrous effects that dolphin pens in Mexico and a turtle farm in the Grand Cayman Islands had on the surrounding corals. The water in these areas is being over taken by algae produced from the bacteria of the excrement of the dolphins and turtles that are held in the pens, as well as the rotting food that is used to feed them. In this video you can see algae has coated the cages that keep the dolphins and turtles contained.
Unfortunately this is not just a problem associated with captive marine life. Thomas told us he has witnessed even larger scale algae take overs across the globe as a result of cities pumping their sewage into the oceans. It is even happening here in B.C. where the city of Victoria still disposes waste into the sea. For more info check out: http://www.poopvictoria.ca/
The deposit of all of this waste ultimately leads to the killing of all corals living in the area. Workers from the Dolphin Park scrub off the algae on a regular basis, but it returns within days. Thomas explained that he has seen positive cases where cities have stopped the flow of contaminants into the oceans and the spread of algae has slowed, but they are few and far between. Like so many of our environmental problems that we face individuals and communities have first admit that there is a problem and second commit to investing into new environmentally friendly methods to overcome it.
The second video is a bit of a contrast.
During our conversation with Thomas about this problem he pointed out the following in reference to our trip to the Marshall Islands:
“Unfortunately almost all populated coasts are now undergoing a steady increase of sewage nutrients, over-fertilizing and killing reefs. You have no idea how rare it is for us to see algae free reefs like what we saw in the Marshall Islands.”
You can see in the clip from one of our snorkel sessions with Thomas in Arno that it’s a completely different world compared to the one shown in the first video.
It’s yet another great example of how special and unique the Marshall Islands are and how important it is that we do everything we can to address the problems of climate change. If nothing else the thought of loosing gifts like this to polluted waters should provide enough motivation for us to rethink the way we treat the earths oceans.