Phuket disgrace: plastic pollution in the Andaman

[webfact]

Phuket disgrace: plastic pollution in the Andaman
Phuket Gazette


This Frasure's Dolphin succumbed to injuries caused by plastic pollutants. Photo: Gazette file

PHUKET: -- My concerns over plastic pollution were stimulated anew by an excellent analysis in the China Daily called 'Drowning in Plastic', and also by the cover story in a recent edition of the Phuket Gazette in which a seasoned local fisherman expressed surprise at the decline in fish catches in our seas.

The main contributor to that story – the president of the Phuket Fishing Association – believed the weather to be the principal factor in fish depopulation, as well as “restrictions on fishermen”. Both analyses are very questionable. The source also blamed “pollution and waste… from hotels” that was more to the point. But the 'P-word' was never mentioned in his analysis.

Anyone interested in ecological issues knows that the principal culprits for the catastrophic decline in marine life in Thailand are the triple evils of over-fishing, including poaching; inadequate regulation of the industry at all levels, including human rights issues and abuses; and pollution.

For decades, weighted trawl nets have scoured the shallow bottom of the Andaman Sea, removing not only entire colonies of fish, but all its benthic life, including deep-water coral, sea grass and bottom feeding molluscs and crustaceans. There has been no effective control over net mesh sizes, hence the sad mountains of tiny fish in markets – evidence that the next piscine generation has already gone the way of all flesh.

Full story: http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuket-news/Phuket-disgrace-plastic-pollution-the-Andaman/65262?desktopversion

-- Phuket Gazette 2016-07-25

[phuketjock]

I fail to see why the headline proclaims this a "Phuket Disgrace" ????

or are we to believe that "Phuket" is entirely responsible for all the pollution

alluded to in this article? Please, no more sensationalist headline writings.

[Alive]

Get used to it. Your children or grandchildren will not know nature as you did as you do not know the world of the past. The tolerance level goes up each generation because the young don't know what the world was once like. That's why these crowded cities grow bigger and bigger. Those who are born into them think life in the sprawl is normal. They accept more and more urbanization and congestion. Man kills all nature. You can kill everything around you except other people. We explode at that but the rest of the natural world is okay to destroy and overpopulate with more and more humans to feed the easiest capitalist model.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Alive

[nakhonandy]

Well although the plastic pollution is terrible it is not the cause of the massively reduced fish stocks, that is totally due to over fishing!

It is not just the hotels either, I regularly see fishing boats throw plastic and other junk over the side.

Considering 5 Countries in Asia account for 80% of the rubbish and Thailand is a major contributor it is hardly a surprise.

As a diver I regularly help with clean up operations but we are just scratching the surface to be honest.

People need to be educated to dispose of rubbish responsibly and the local councils need to provide adequate facilities to do this.

Also littering should have a heavy fine.

[LPCustom69]

Sad, and disgusting!

[Canuk23]

No WW3 needed the Human race will eliminate itself !!!