They Walk Among Us

As the red scare Sci-Fi movie healdlines of the fifties would say.

Imagine this 'Walking Shark' Among 50 New Marine Species Found Off Indonesia's Papua Province

Luckily it's the kind of shark they keep at Big Al's Marineland stores....





This is quite amazing.....Watch a video of the "walking" shark and other species.

Again we are discovering whole new worlds in the Indonesian region both on land and on sea.

Researchers described an underwater world of visual wonders, such as the small epaulette shark that "walks" on its fins and colorful schools of reef fish populating abundant and healthy corals of all shapes and sizes.

"These Papuan reefs are literally 'species factories' that require special attention to protect them from unsustainable fisheries and other threats so they can continue to benefit their local owners and the global community," said Mark Erdmann, senior adviser of CI's Indonesian Marine Program, who led the surveys. "Six of our survey sites, which are areas the size of two football fields, had over 250 species of reef-building coral each - that's more than four times the number of coral species of the entire Caribbean Sea."

Unfortunately this newly discovered shark and its underwater world is threatened by capitalist development in the region. Oh no you say not that old canard. Well explain this then its not the regional human population that threatens this area......

Though human population density in the region is low,

the coastal people of the Bird's Head peninsula are heavily dependent on the sea for their livelihoods -

which now are under threat from a plan to transfer fishing pressures from Indonesia's over-fished western seas to the east toward Papua province.

Threats from over-fishing with dynamite and cyanide, as well as deforestation and mining that degrade coastal waters, require immediate steps to protect the unique marine life that sustains local communities. The seascape's central location in the Coral Triangle of the Pacific, which exports and maintains biodiversity in the entire Indo-Pacific marine realm, makes it one of the planet's most urgent marine conservation priorities.

Some of those mining companies that are dumping cyanide are Canadian.

But of course if we treat this region like the Tories treated our Kyoto commitments it wil be; the region is screwed there is nothing we can do so lets do nothing.

But that is not true as CI found out in research on coral reefs off Madagascar, another under research marine area.....

Healthy Coral Reefs Of Madagascar Resisting Damage From Climate Change

They found healthy coral reefs that have avoided bleaching attributed to climate change found in other Indian Ocean reefs. The researchers believe cool water currents from adjacent deep ocean areas offset the warming effects of climate change.

"The resiliency and health of the coral reefs with their biodiversity and endemism makes the reefs of Madagascar a high conservation priority," said Gerald R. Allen, a leading ichthyologist who conducted underwater fish surveys on the expedition.

So we are discovering that our planet is alive and self repairing, some areas of the planet can adapt to climate chang. The fact is that when we speak of human development and its impact on global warming we are not just talking about human communities or human industry but a specific kind of industrialization. We are talking about capitalism. Those on the right understand this and so they engage in the psudeo science of global warming denial.

Capitalism is a non sustainable system of industrialization. Its resulting pollution,planned obsolescence and creation of a society of throw away goods (look at the masses of landfills world wide that provide habitat and living spaces for the poorest of the poor in our growing supercities) has distrubed the world more in 100 years than all of human existance over the last 20,000.

Capitalism exasperates and increases global warming , climate change and environmantal damage. By its internal logic of constant growth at any cost. It not human societies or huamn development in a region perse will destroy vulnerable areas that are adapting.

These regions may be able to adapt to climate change induced by low level human industrialization, but they cannot escape results of capitalist development on the shoreline, whether it is large scale trawling fishing, mining tailings dumped into the sea or garbage, sewage and offal dumped by tourist ships.

Yes you can help preserve this and the other unique ecological niches in this area. Check out Conservation International who is doing excellent work in this region of our world.

And remember YOU can save the world you live in.... you too can smash capitalism and its state.

See:

Ecology

Global Warming

New Species

Lost and Found

Capitalism Threatens Coelacanth

Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
science, Indonesia, discovery, cryptozoology,animals,
shark, sharkwalks, Papuansea, marinelife, Papau, NewGuinea, Pacific, CI, ConservationInternational, sea, seacreatures,
fish, animals, reefs, coral, endangered, species, fishing, cynaide, mining, tailings, Madagascar, coralreefs, globalwarming,