Bomb Fishing Is Wreaking Havoc on Indonesia's Coral Reefs

(e360.yale.edu)

40 points | by speckx 40 minutes ago

5 comments

  • wlaw15 24 minutes ago
    Sometimes you learn of an unintended consequence of seemingly good idea wreaking havoc on an ecosystem. I would not put fishing with "plastic bottles filled with explosives" into that category.
  • pingou 24 minutes ago
    "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.

    • cannonpr 8 minutes ago
      You’d be surprised how vulnerable aquatic organisms are, and how far energy travels in water after an explosion…
      • franciscop 2 minutes ago
        I think the point is the opposite, I also expected a lot more damage from a bomb every hour
      • chinathrow 3 minutes ago
        I would assume the area was larger than reported. I mean that's 24*365 bombs per year.
    • deadbunny 22 minutes ago
      I'd assume the deployment isn't always over reefs?
  • epolanski 27 minutes ago
    We truly deserve to get extinct. There's nothing but selfishness and greed from Wall Street to San Francisco to the Indonesian fisheries and Indian farms.
    • quietsignal 8 minutes ago
      Note that the selfishness of the farmer or fisherman may in certain light differ from the greed of the capitalist, if one’s family endurance depends on it.
      • TSiege 0 minutes ago
        If you read the article it’s pretty clear this is greed and short sighted thinking

        > While understudied, the incentives for the use of dangerous dynamite fishing are often falsely attributed solely to poverty and desperation. The cost barrier to buying boats, bombs, and detonators means it’s more likely a practice for middle-income fishers, according to experts.

        “A combination of factors drives blast fishing, including ineffective enforcement and management,” said Hampton-Smith, highlighting how indiscriminate the explosions are, killing all manner of species, regardless of age, size, or intent.

      • epolanski 3 minutes ago
        Those are nothing but excuses.

        Destroying habitats and the future of fellow fishermen for short-term gain is just selfishness and greed.

        Desperation is no excuse.

        • eloisius 0 minutes ago
          Easy to say when it’s not your child facing starvation. The long term doesn’t matter if your family isn’t going to make it another month.
        • horacemorace 1 minute ago
          Say that again when your children are starving.
    • voakbasda 26 minutes ago
      Amen. Humanity had its chance. We have blown it. Let the cockroaches get their turn.
      • 21asdffdsa12 6 minutes ago
        Ahistoric defeatism. Embraces our nature, instead of fleeing for the hills of utopism. Learn to steer it, change it. We accomplished wonders- humanity is calm and peaceful compared to what it once was.

        The gaming industry and cellphones alone have pacified a species whose footprint is ever shrinking. Literal monks with hypnotic glowing stones, this whole industry is a miracle and has given nature a breather it would not have had without it.

      • karim79 24 minutes ago
        Let's not forget the scorpions. They also deserve a turn.
  • bcjdjsndon 34 minutes ago
    Send them some subsidies from those large American coffers then, and they won't need to
    • paimapi 12 minutes ago
      blunt comment but not technically wrong - it's likely poverty and subsistence living that's driving adoption of this 'technique' and much of that originates from a combination of the colonial carve up of Indonesia [0] in combination with the weak and easily exploited position of the country within globalized economic markets [1]

      [0] https://law.wm.edu/academics/intellectuallife/researchcenter...

      >Centuries of Dutch control produced an ethnic and economic caste system familiar to many colonized peoples. Compared to some imperial powers, Dutch policy was less focused on “Dutchifying” the indigenous population, with most attention paid to resource extraction and maritime strategic advantage.

      [1] https://archive.org/details/ahmad-nashih-luthfi-muhammad-fau...

      >The short cut to development that the New Order took was highly depending on foreign loans. Consequently, development models were very much shaped by the foreign institutions that became the source of finance for Indonesia. At the end of the 1980s for instance, the World Bank forced for the project for the construction of Kedung Ombo Dam [...] The construction of the Dam had caused thousands of people and tens of villages to be evicted and involuntarily resettled. The Dam became the symbol of prestige for the New Order. When the New Order regime collapsed, the dam was abandoned and gradually left to dry.

      • joshuaissac 0 minutes ago
        > it's likely poverty and subsistence living that's driving adoption of this 'technique'

        From the article:

        > While understudied, the incentives for the use of dangerous dynamite fishing are often falsely attributed solely to poverty and desperation.

        > The cost barrier to buying boats, bombs, and detonators means it’s more likely a practice for middle-income fishers, according to experts.

      • Poacher5 9 minutes ago
        That's addressed in the article? The claim made is that this is more a way of middle-income market-trading fishermen increasing their catch and profit. Those at the bottom can't afford the necessary explosives.
        • mushi_shi 7 minutes ago
          Yeah, why go through all of the effort to blame this on colonialism? Maybe these people just suck and don't care/don't know any better. We can't make everything a problem of colonialism.
  • heyitsmedotjayb 14 minutes ago
    I bet many of the people here moaning and whinging eat fish themselves!
    • kubb 9 minutes ago
      I bet almost nobody here eats bombfished fish. <0.1%