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DATE: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 18:52:01
From: "fitri" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Sent: Friday, November 24, 2000 4:15 PM
Subject: Guardian report from Bali: Blood On The Beaches
The Guardian [UK]
Friday November 24, 2000
Blood on the beaches
It survived the dinosaurs. It survived an ice age. But will the majestic
green sea turtle survive us? John Aglionby reports from Bali on a barbaric
illegal trade that is wiping out one of the world's most ancient species
The stench of freshly butchered meat grates on the nostrils as I approach
the
turtle slaughterhouse; I can smell it from the grounds of the local primary
school, 100m away.
The building itself is about 60m by 10m, and inside are the lobster tanks
that are required by law. These are empty. On the other side of the
building,
turtles are packed like sardines into more tanks. The floor between these
tanks is barely visible because it is covered with more than 150 live
turtles: it is impossible not to tread on them as I wander around.
Stacked against one wall are shells, some clean, others still covered in
blood. Meat is piled high on a board and the constant thud-thud-thud of a
swinging cleaver echoes round the chamber. Barbaric is too gentle a word for
the slaughtering process I witness: apparently it would ruin the meat to
kill
them before skinning them. The turtle, which can live more than 200 years,
is
one of the few animals that cries, and on more than one occasion I see tears
running down these animals' faces.
So welcome to Tanjung Benoa, a pretty fishing village on the idyllic
south-east coast of Bali. At first it looks no different from the hundreds
of
other sleepy fishing villages along the shoreline. Fishermen tend to their
ageing boats under palm trees along a sparkling, sun-drenched, white-sand
beach, small Hindu temples dotted with offerings are a feature of almost
every garden and pushy young men offer diving trips and village tours to the
tourists.
But underneath this veneer of normality, Tanjung is the centre of a deadly
illegal trade in tortoiseshell and meat that is threatening to exterminate
one of the world's most ancient species. The tourists happily parasailing
overhead, enjoying a bird's-eye view of the island, are blissfully unaware
that 100m beneath dozens of majestic green sea turtles are being brutally
slaughtered. Meanwhile others are being prepared for export to Singapore,
Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Scientists believe 17th-century Dutch seafarers were barely exaggerating
when
they wrote of being able to walk from one Indonesian island to another
across
the backs of green turtles. Now the picture is of an increasingly violent
struggle to protect a 250-million-year-old species. There were green turtles
in our seas aeons before dinosaurs tramped the earth; they survived the last
ice age; but they may not be with us much longer.
"There have been massively significant drops in the past 50 to 60 years,"
says Klaas Teule, a scientist with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF),
which runs a major turtle conservation project based in Bali. "It's hard to
put an exact figure on it but 80% would be on the conservative side."
Turtle experts based in Australia believe that at the turn of the last
century the region was home to up to one third of the world's turtles. The
scale of the slaughter in recent decades, especially the past 10 years, has
been so great that the figure is now down to 5%.
Teule gives as an example the island of Aru in south-east Indonesia, where a
few years ago 5,000-6,000 turtles swam ashore annually to bury their eggs in
the sand. "It's now supposed to be the peak season but we're only seeing one
or two a night."
"Part of the problem is that turtles live so long and they take so long to
start breeding. It takes 20 years to see the impact of what's going on now,"
says his WWF colleague Ghislaine Llewellyn. "It may already be too late."
Most countries agreed to ban trading in the seven turtle species a decade
ago
when they signed the convention on international trade in endangered species
(Cites). Indonesia, which is home to six of the seven species, was one of
the
signatories but the government gave special dispensation to Bali, in the
form
of a 5,000-animal annual quota, after lobbying from traders on the island.
They argued that using turtles in religious and traditional village
ceremonies had been part of Balinese culture for centuries.
Conservationists claim that businessmen then flocked to the island and began
rampantly abusing this quota. "The reality is that there was no proper
monitoring of the quota and no law enforcement so the traders could do what
they liked," says Purwo, a member of the Indonesian campaigning group,
Animal
Conservation For Life (KSBK). Research carried out by KSBK found almost
30,000 turtles passed through Tanjung in 1999 and that the figure was not
much lower in previous years. The actual death toll is much greater because
thousands more turtles get caught up in fishing nets and suffocate.
Responding to this pressure, the Balinese governor withdrew the quota in
June
and banned turtle trading and consumption, period. But the turtle traders
now
face ruin, and they have fought back with increasing violence as the
conservationists and authorities steadily turn the screws. When American
environmental activist Robin Marinos, of Earth Advocates, tried to release
turtles on Tanjung beach in June, he was chased away. "The leading trader
who
controls Tanjung, known as Wewe, was so angry at us he poured gasoline over
our car and then over my arm as I tried to shake his hand," he alleges. "We
had no choice but to leave and were only able to release four turtles."
The government, in the form of the natural resources conservation (KSDA)
office, swung into action. With police help they impounded several of Wewe's
boats full of turtles and launched an investigation. He is due to go on
trial
next month on charges relating to turtle trading and destroying the
evidence.
But this has not stopped Wewe and his cohorts. They have persuaded the local
legislature to review the quota ban - through bribery, according to KSDA
sources - and until this process has been completed they are refusing to
halt
their trading activities. Not wanting to risk a major riot, the authorities
seem to be willing to wait for the politicians to make a final decision.
The traders, many of whom are not Balinese and pay their workers a pittance,
are also escalating their direct action campaign. Earlier this month Wewe
took about 100 fishermen to demonstrate at the KSDA, governor's, and WWF
offices. They daubed the walls of the latter with graffiti, smashed a
whiteboard and there were reports that some of them threatened to burn down
the building and rape female staff. "We must be doing something right if
Wewe
is resorting to such desperate tactics," says Tim Jessup, the WWF project
director.
Wewe, whose real name is Widji Zakariah, is Chinese-Indonesian and came to
Bali 12 years ago. He says WWF is being neither honest nor fair. "WWF is
telling the whole world that the Balinese are slaughtering turtles. It talks
but does not have any evidence at all. They talk about this and that
research
but we never see it."
This is rubbish, according to Agus Haryanta, the head of the Bali KSDA
office. "I personally have gone to Tanjung and explained the situation to
Wewe," he says. "So he can't say he is not aware of the new law or the
threat
to turtles here."
Wewe insists that his traders now restrict their trade to about 50 turtles a
month and then only for traditional and religious ceremonies. He "proved"
this by giving me a tour of his holding pen which contained only about 40
turtles, all larger than the 50cm minimum shell length required under the
quota.
What he neglected to show me, and what I saw four days later when I returned
to Tanjung posing as a restaurant owner looking for lobster suppliers, were
the five more pens stuffed with turtles - many with shells smaller than
50cms
- and the local slaughterhouse, one of four in the area.
The horrific scenes I witness are apparently necessary. "Slitting the throat
induces a chemical reaction that causes a nasty food poisoning if you eat
it," a local chef tells me. "That's why they have to cut the meat out of the
shell and keep it alive as long as possible."
When asked about this house of horror, Wewe's only way of explaining it is
to
suggest that the manager, Rasta Made, did not have beachside pens to keep
turtles in and that the slaughterhouse must have just received an order for
a
large celebration. Rasta was not available for comment.
Nyoman, a tourist guide in the village, says this is ridiculous. "The truth
is that Wewe and the others are as busy as ever. At least five boats a month
full of 300 turtles come in a month from Sulawesi and Borneo and then there
are many other smaller boats. They are all unloaded at night so people can't
see what's going on."
There are signs that local opposition is starting to mount against the
traders however. One Tanjung businessman regularly buys turtles from the
traders and releases them back into the ocean. Some months ago he teamed up
with the Bali Intercontinental hotel to raise the profile of the turtles'
plight and since May they have freed more than 1,000. At least one of those
he bought and freed had come all the way from Australia - it had been tagged
by conservationists there.
"I am certain that many of those will be caught again," he says. "But if
only
1% or 2% make it to maturity and start breeding then it will have been worth
it."
He is also taking part in the wider campaign to stop the trade in turtle
eggs. In Indonesia alone this is worth millions of dollars - the rights to
collect the eggs for the next year in one small area of Indonesian Borneo
were recently auctioned off for more than #75,000.
Scientific research shows that only 1% of all eggs develop into mature,
breeding turtles and current estimates suggest that the number of eggs
surviving undisturbed is hundreds of times less than is necessary to
replenish the number of turtles being slaughtered in Tanjung.
What is likely to prove far more threatening to Wewe though are the growing
calls from Balinese religious leaders to stop the turtle trade. After being
lobbied by conservationists, Hindu high priests such as Ida Pedanda Gede
Ngurah Kaleran are now admitting that turtles are not crucial for religious
rituals, let alone traditional ceremonies. "Substitutes can be used," he
says. "Either other animals or even virtual animals in the form of drawings
or models. Nowhere does it say that the actual animal has to be killed."
Such slaughter of turtles goes against Hindu teaching, he says. "Hindus are
not allowed to be violent against others of God's creatures. What is going
on
with the turtles certainly contravenes that teaching."
Pedanda fears that if the killing continues the whole of Bali will suffer.
"Turtles are only consumed in a few areas of the island," he says. "But if
news of this illegal destruction gets out then tourists will stop coming
here."
Campaigners are holding fire on starting a "boycott Bali" movement, but only
for another few weeks, says Purwo of KSBK. "We are waiting to see what
happens at Wewe's trial," he says. "If he is convicted and imprisoned then
we
think the forces of conservation will succeed. But if he gets off then we
will be contacting groups like Greenpeace to help coordinate a global
'boycott Bali' drive."
Haryanta, the head of KSDA, believes there is a strong case against Wewe,
and
that he should be convicted. "The governor seems determined not to
reintroduce the quota," he says. "So within six months I hope the worst will
be over."
If things do not go to plan, however, he thinks the future is bleak for the
turtles. "The fact that Wewe and his men are having to catch so many little
turtles shows how few mature ones are left. If we lose in court it will not
be long before there will not even be any small ones left to catch."
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