Better than Balloons and Sky Lanterns

Save Philippine Seas offers 10 easy, fun, and eco-friendly ways to celebrate...without using balloons and/or sky lanterns. Yes, it's possible! ;-)

Check out the cool infographic below. Share if you care! :-)

posted from Bloggeroid

Garbage Bag from the Sea

Nature's wrath

It was 2 years ago when the tendrils of the typhoon called "Egay" mightily churned the waters of Bagac Bay, giving our party of 12 a most unusual vacation by the dark sandy beaches of Morong, Bataan. Three-foot high waves crested and then rampaged hastily from several meters away onto the shore, where we still made the best of the situation, imagining it to be a "natural" wave pool. As the waters were pulled back into the sea, it also dragged with it some of the sand from the beach along Bagac Bay, making our feet sink a little deeper into the shore where we stood. As I said, it was a most unusual vacation, certainly a different way of experiencing Inang Dagat.

What made it even more unusual was the flotsam that the sea left on the shore: an assortment of oddities in all shades and hues and, most noticeably, do not belong in the sea. Garbage, in so many different forms, shapes, and sizes. Plastic straws, crushed plastic cups, plastic bags, plastic wrappers. Wrecked slippers. Bottles made of glass and plastic. Bottlecaps and plastic container covers. Tetra juice packs.

What's more distressing is this: have you noticed that whenever there's a storm at sea, garbage is always tossed out of the waters? It's another way by which nature cleans itself and tells us again that, "Hey, Humans, I'm not your garbage can!" The more that we don't listen, the worse that we make it for ourselves.

Bagac Bay on a normal sunny day.
Dazzling blue as it should always be.

I believe that each one of us is born with the "Earth's steward" gene. It should kick in instinctively but, most people choose to ignore it and do instead what seems to be less inconvenient, which is to take as much as we want (not need, those are two very different things) and dispose anytime, anywhere we desire. Some of us just can't be bothered to go the extra mile of actually doing what's right and what's better, which is to be responsible. And that is just unfortunate because that means we forget that we are simply visitors on this planet. Earth was created specifically to be host and a source of delight to us, to Life, and we in turn were created to roam it and to enjoy its goodness. For what good is a planet full of creativity and beauty if not enjoyed by a species that is able to appreciate it? Yet, if the Earth could speak, she might actually be resentful of us.

That day, the Earth somehow spoke to us. Seeing all the garbage that came out of the sea, we couldn't help but pick them up and collect them somewhere on the shore far from the water's edge. As we were doing so, suddenly my husband picked up from the agitated waters something black and square...and folded. He unfolded it and realized it was an unused garbage bag. It came from the sea. That was a sign as clear as crystal, it was the Earth giving us a hand, knowing that we're on her side. We filled it up quickly in just 5 minutes -- yes, that's how much garbage was on the beach, and this was just on the area in front of the beach house we were staying in. It was almost filled to the brim when we picked up another unexpected flotsam from the sea: a backpack. That convinced us all the more that it was really Mother Earth tossing us some good vibes. After cleaning up as much as we could, the natural beauty of the beach became visible again. Underneath all that garbage were clam shells and pieces of coral half-buried in the fine dark sand.

But, alas, the sea wasn't done heaving out several decades' worth of garbage and there was just a handful of us trying to help her. We can't clean up everything. We ALL have to pitch in. Pitch in now and every day from hereon. Be responsible tourists every single day. Encourage others to do the same.

Related links:
Getting Plastic Bags Out of Our System
World's oceans in 'shocking' decline

posted from Bloggeroid

A Coral that Eats a Coral-Eater!

This is one of the most exciting things I learned this week: a coral that eats a coral-eater!

On the left is a corallimorph (Paracorynactis hoplites) munching on a coral terrorist, the crown-of-thorns sea star (Acanthaster planci). At this link is another photo of this wonderful little critter. These photos were taken by my SPS co-founder Blogie Robillo at Davao Gulf.

Crown-of-Thorns starfish (COTS) can be challenging to control and is considered a pest on coral reefs since it breeds very quickly and ravages coral reefs. Until recently, some believed that the Giant Triton (Charonia tritonis) is the COTS' only natural predator (well, apart from divers who are removing them from time to time). Unfortunately, Giant Tritons are dwindling in numbers due to overharvesting. So the fact that there's another weapon against COTS is very good news. Truly, Nature is always able to balance itself out.

Learn more about Paracorynactis hoplites through this report (only 6 pages) from August 2011 based on a research led by Dr. Arthus R. Bos. The researchers call it a "highly efficient predator". Really quite fascinating! :)

The Tragedy of Barren Seabeds

This is a fictional story. Let's not let art imitate reality.

The sea has a hypnotic effect on me. I can stare at the splash and crash of the waves for hours and not be bored at all. In fact, most of my inspired moments came to me while close to the sea or traveling over the sea. I imagine water nymphs jumping and tumbling around, ever in a perpetual state of play on the water's surface.

After reading "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" decades ago as a young teenager, I would pretend that mermaids with glistening hair and skin were swimming under every boat I rode. Until now, that image stays with me but, now I know that there are tens of thousands of far more interesting, fascinating, colorful, and majestic creatures living underwater.

It is easy to forget this truth, that beneath the waves, life actually exists. Under the water is a world a lot like the one above it. Just like dry land, the ocean floor has a terrain. Hillsides, mountain, valleys, and plateaus. Like every hillside and mountain, there are forests. Like every forest, there are creatures living within them.

But, just as we do on land, we also do in the sea. By some cruel design, humankind seems bent on bringing about selfish and wanton destruction. To what end? Don't ever forget that all this is not ours to have for eternity. When our time has come and the next generation arrives, is this what we will leave them -- barren seabeds, white and dead corals, empty seas? Will our children's children get to see the wildlife that once filled our waters only in museums?

Going Plastic-less with Baby Steps

On July 3 (back in 2011), International Plastic Bag-Free Day, my boys came home from grocery-shopping in the SM Hypermarket on C-5 Pasig with our new food stuff and what-not in cardboard boxes, which elicited such a joy in me.  My hubby told me that SM started packing away in boxes in compliance with Pasig City's Green City program (Ordinance #09-2010, I think, but I can't find a copy of the guidelines online).  This is a much better move than using biodegradable plastic bags and even more so than the lukewarm BYOB Wednesdays.  But my happiness was short-lived because, upon opening the boxes, I am once again reminded of how far we still have to go with really truly becoming plastic-free.

All for the Love of Sea Turtles

Barely a day old! Olive Ridley hatchlings kept in a moist
container before being released to the sea :)

Around 6 P.M. on Nov. 30, 2012, I got to share with my boys for the first time a most precious experience: releasing sea turtle hatchlings to the ocean.  I've become a wide-eyed fan-girl of these marine reptiles ever since our first experience of swimming with a large adult green sea turtle in Apo Island a couple of years back, and moreso when I learned that sea turtles "imprint".

Imprinting happens as hatchlings clamber quickly to the sea. Along the way, they remember details about the sand and the beach where they were born. This memory is what guides them back to the same area 20-35 years later when it's time to create the next generation of sea turtles. Isn't that amazing?

Did you know that sea turtles are also like the "gardeners" of the sea?  They promote seagrass cultivation and keep the populations of sponges and jellyfish in check.  This way, they protect corals and other smaller sea creatures, giving them a chance to thrive.  Recently, I learned that even the way they nest contributes to the health of beaches and sandy ecosystems.

But there are so many threats to the survival of sea turtles, both natural and man-made.

Eco-Tourist Woes

Bulabog Beach, Boracay 
(Photo by Ocean Hour Philippines)

Since becoming a conservationist, I've turned into a slightly more stressed out traveler. Instead of enjoying and discovering new experiences while traveling, I've become quick to see what is wrong. Instead of recounting the wonderful things I see, I recount the violations I noticed. I've really ruined the "tourist experience" for myself.

A friend said to me, "Your standards have just become higher because you now know better." Well, that's one way of looking at it.  There is no way I could ever just experience things as they are because I'm more aware now.

Just to be clear: I don't go berserk and tell people not to do this or that, ok? I just quietly seethe most of the time.

Another friend, who I see as an "ultimate traveler", told me today that he stays away from a lot of "must visit" places lately.  I asked him if we (SPS) turned him that way. "YES", he replied with a wide unblinking stare.

There must be a way to remain a responsible traveler without ruining the experience for others.  Would these work?

Do you have PET / PETE Bottles?

I'm a HUGE fan of organic beauty products, especially body washes.  That should make it easy for you to find a gift for me ;-)  But, after I've emptied them, throwing away the bottles breaks my heart every time.  I know that my city's waste management allows for recyclable bottles to get, uh, recycled somehow, but I wanted to make sure they do.  Active involvement, you know?  So I asked my social networks for info about if Human Nature or Body Shop takes back emptied containers of their products.

100 Green Things I Can Do

On a whim one night, I asked myself if I could think of at least 50 "green" things that I could do.  And then when I got to No. 50 and realized that I could name a few more things, I challenged myself to go for a hundred.  Well, it took almost 2 weeks, but I finally finished this list :)

These are really simple things that anyone can do. I think it's important to remember that going green isn't really difficult, you just have to commit to being eco-friendly and making responsible choices.  Practice makes perfect ;-)  

A lot of what I've listed here, I'm already doing.  Others, I'm going to start on soon.  Come on, go green with me! :D

The Sad Truth Behind a Dolphin's Smile

The statement made by Gail Laule of Ocean Adventure in this video interview enrages me. She believes that "animals are designed to work for a living..." and that they are actually doing their captive dolphins a favor by making feeding easy for them. All the dolphins have to do, according to her, is "swim across the lagoon and they get fish." I'm sure she meant the poor creatures have to do some stunts some first and then get some fish. By the way, those stunts are NOT done naturally by dolphins in the wild. If dolphins could talk, I am 100% sure they'd actually bitchslap any human that tries to bribe it with dead fish.

  

Real dolphins are designed to swim hundreds of miles a day in the vast oceans of our blue planet. They do not catch balls, jump through hula hoops, spin in the air for show, or flip upside down and wave their tail as if to say "goodbye". I learned from Patricia Sorongon, a marine mammal researcher who specializes in the study of whale and dolphin behavior, that every "trick" we might see dolphins do in the wild are actually done for a reason. If you've seen dolphins jump and spin in the air, they don't do that to impress us humans. It's actually a hunting technique. Have you seen dolphins blow bubbles in the water? It's not for play. They blow bubbles in the direction of a prey, which gets stunned once suddenly trapped in the bubble and then the dolphin quickly swoops in for the kill. Patricia also told me that dolphins are at their best when they race towards certain areas in the oceans, where a hunting and feeding frenzy happens alongside other types of ocean predators.

Why do we humans keep believing that we're too smart for any other creature on this planet? We believe ourselves to be the species with the highest level of intelligence and that everything on this earth was meant to be put under our control, even to the point of exploitation and abuse. It is all absolutely disgusting and heartless.

I've been in touch with Christopher Porter, A.K.A. the "Dolphin Dealer". He was a former dolphin trainer/hunter who caused a huge scandal from 2003-2009 with his dolphin trade in the Solomon Islands. Now, Christopher is the current leader of the Canadian Action Party. He gave up the dolphin trade last year and has since been working against the same industry he supported. Just a few days ago, I shared with him the videos that Earth Island Institute Philippines and ACRES Singapore took while on a recent visit to Ocean Adventure (watch the eyebrow-raising videos here and here). In his latest emails to me, Christopher said:

"Typical reaction by the [dolphin show] Industry. The training with the objects is standard. Mostly to make sure that enrichment devices can be retrieved. All about control and being able to control the animals. The argument will always be that captive animals make people aware of the animals and that they will better look after them in the wild. Watch closely how the industry puts the otis onto the public to look after the animals not themselves. I have finally realized this is the way they justify it to themselves. It took me a couple of years to figure it out but I get it now...the industry says they education [sic] and make the public aware with the expectation and the responsibility for them to look after the wild animals." 

I am puzzled, bewildered, and mortified by the lies that we tell ourselves about the role of animals in our human existence -- lies that we've allowed animal exploiters to hammer into our consciousness.

I pledge to NEVER again watch dolphin shows. Say "No" to dolphin shows with me. NO to animal cruelty.

Please sign our petition to free the RWS dolphins.


Image source here.

Getting Plastic Bags Out of Our System

If Alexander Parkes could see the ecological damage caused largely by his invention, would he think twice about how he made plastics and maybe figure out a way to make it break down faster?  We now know that biodegradable plastic exists but it's still a fairly new resource, so it's still not that cheap to make.  Not yet, at least.  How different would our world be if plastic was never invented in the first place?  Why was plastic invented anyway?

But here we are now, a world where plastic is part of life and a gigantic swirling vortex of trash with tons of plastic called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is growing at a massive rate (I wonder if it's already visible from space?).  Thankfully, we are now living in a time when environmental awareness is finally a real and global concern.  Although it took natural disasters to get our attention, we are now learning and making lifestyle changes -- ever so slowly, but surely.

Why I Refuse the Starbucks Planner Promo Card

I began declining the Starbucks Planner promo card in Holiday Season 2006.  Friends who know me very well know that I don't put up with anything that doesn't make sense to me, and buying a dozen cups of coffee at Starbucks just to get 1 measly planner that's nothing special (don't use that "It's limited edition!" line with me or I will slap you) makes absolutely no sense to me.