Swimming upstream

Our fifth ever boat excursion the day before did not start off very well at all, we walked around the fish market and I saw a horrific number of sharks caught this morning. A row of about 20 juvenile ones and about 6 full grown, 2 of which were looked like the Great hammerheads…

I realised that the people in the shark abattoir seemed unfamiliar to me this time, not the usual fishermen I use to see or talk to, and I found out from Agus later that they were not fishermen from Lombok, possibly fishermen from the neighbouring islands. Tanjung Luar is still such a main trading centre for fish and sharks and suddenly the problem seemed so much bigger to me at that instance. I felt lost and a little crushed and my guests were horrified at the sight of the shark carcasses. Is this my battle to fight or a lost cause as I seem to be swimming upstream all the time. I try to build relationships slowly, I understand the needs and pains of some of the fishermen living in Tanjung Luar, and then I see this for myself and wonder if I am approaching this the wrong way. You can see dead sharks constantly but the the fact of the ongoing deaths still pierced at the heart as I broke down in a corner after we walked away. Wasn’t it just the day before that I received an update from Shark Savers that shark prices in Tanjung Luar has gone down by 80%? It is not lucrative and just too much work, surely they have to see the value of the tourist dollar? And it hit me that perhaps targetting the fishermen in Tanjung Luar wasn’t going to work, I needed the help of legislation and enforcement, but who could I approach or who do I know? I want shark fishing to be stopped here and I wanted the Lombok government to see that ecotourism is really the sustainable and long term answer to a country whose shores are so rich with reefs and marine life like no other, but is quickly being decimated. The irony of tourists wanting to seek out pristine beaches and reefs to visit yet the local population are looting and plundering their own resources without realizing that preserving these assets can bring them so much more in the long run. Legislation, education and incentive.

As we set out on our boat excursion, I saw something I hadn’t seen before at my favourite snorkel site just off pink beach too. Yes the waters were still crystal clear and there was still an array of teeming marine life, but I noticed there was some bleaching that was happening to the corals now that I hadn’t noticed before too. Are the oceans becoming warmer that the effects pervade to these calm inner reefs now, or did something happen here that was a result my of bringing tourists here. I am left disturbed and very conflicted indeed.

At the end of the excursion as we came back ashore, the fishermen led Agus to his house which was a stone’s throw from the fish market and handed him some bags of rocks because he learnt that Agus was in the midst of building his house and was in need of materials he had that he could spare. I was really heartened by the gesture and truly, the Indonesians have a gotong royong community spirit to help one another, which is why building relationships with them is so crucial in what I set out to do. A community that works together for positive change in the world can be a powerful force when harnessed.

There are many questions and problems that keep coming up in this journey and there have been so many moments where I have felt so small and so alone in the choice to plough ahead, but with Agus’ brilliant mind and sincere belief that this will work and with the heartening replies from people I have never even met before, on the Facebook post I made the morning before, I know I gotta keep swimming and working with the angels I have continually been blessed to encounter.

Thank you, all of you, for echoing the cause and fighting alongside me as well so I never feel alone.

Return to Tanjung Luar

So I went back to Tanjung Luar today and thought about the reasons why people eventually get off eating shark fin soup, hoping, more than ever, that the demand would come to an end as it seems more consequential now. These fishermen, butchers and traders in the shark finning industry in Lombok have never even tasted shark fin soup before…

Reasons why people get off shark fin soup:

1)      It is cruel to forcefully take the fin off sharks while they are still alive and throw the rest of the shark back in the ocean to drown to death, in some countries.

2)      If you love your seafood, you want the apex predators of the sharks to maintain the marine ecosystems so your favourite seafood won’t get wiped out.

3)      You want your future generations to still be able to see sharks alive in the oceans.

4)      You have seen the beauty of sharks before while diving already and know that you want sharks alive than dead.

5)      It is not sustainable as the demand for shark fin soup goes up and overfishing results in depletion of several species of sharks especially since sharks take a long time to reach sexual maturity and birth few pups each time.

6)      There is no taste to shark fin, all the taste comes from the broth it is cooked in.

7)      The high level of mercury in the sharks as a result of being so high up the food chain means you are slowly poisoning yourself when you choose to eat shark fin soup

Being back at Tanjung Luar after 3 months, I see the same traders and fishermen faces, the same butchers that cut up the precious marine life brought in to the market, without regard for sustainability. Nothing much has changed yet so much had changed. This time, I saw heaps more baby sharks, thresher sharks and hammerhead shark. As the first hammerhead shark with guts spilling out, was racked in from the boat into the all too familiar enclosed space for the trader to measure the fins and decide on the price, I was overwhelmed with emotions. My reaction I thought, was uncalled for since it wasn’t my first time here yet the shock effect kicked in all at once. Maybe I never really ever want to be desensitized to seeing this happening over and over gain.

I think we saw a total of 3 ray sharks, 4 hammerhead sharks, 4 thresher sharks and 15 other reef sharks alongside 5 manta rays, with maggots and guts spilling out. None of the species I have ever seen alive before. It was heart-wrenching and sickening to say the least. Then it dawned upon me, the daunting nature of what I had ahead of me. Can I really change things around here? What if the shark traders come after my life? I also realized there and then that in spite of the sights and sounds I can capture here, there is one thing I cannot ever capture, the smells here…the stinking smell of death that lingers and reeks on our clothes even after we left.

Wages for traders per kilogram of shark fin – USD600-1000;

wages of fishermen and boat crew for catching sharks that bring in 1 kilogram of fins – USD60;

wages for butchers who help cut up the fins, shark meat and get the guts for free bonus (to be made into satay and crackers) – USD6

Really, how does that equate to fair division? The “think about the poor fishermen’s livelihood” argument doesn’t really hold anymore then as, clearly, there is exploitation in the shark finning and fishing industry (at least here in Lombok it is evident) and the middlemen gains the most. What are you really feeding when you choose to say yes to shark fin soup?

Perhaps before embarking on The Dorsal Effect ecotours, Wei Yuet and I hazarded the thought, tongue-in-cheek, that we should bring brides to be, to Tanjung Luar, shock them to tears with how the fins for their soup are obtained so they would think twice about serving it at their wedding dinner before starting the ecotourism packages.

baby sharks

Day one first trip back to Lombok

It was great to catch Agus again at the Lombok Mataram airport waving a sign “Welcome back…Kathy!!” wildly as we ran out of customs clearance. That wave of familiarity and comfort of being back. Lombok immediately felt like a home away from home. As soon as that thought conceived itself as the car rolled into Yuli’s Homestay, Agus chirped “welcome back to your second home!”

Dinner at Warung Java after dropping off our bags, was an intimate affair, with Agus sharing in proficient Japanese about the poor quality of the cloth the children were trying to peddle to us at the dinner table. Who can forget the all too familiar coaxing and smooth talking of the children as Wei Yuet went “I don’t need this” and the instant reply came like a well rehearsed flirt “you don’t need but you want it. Buy for your sister.” Save for the scratch I sustained getting embroiled in a cat fight that ensued beneath our table, dinner was a nice ease back into Lombok I left behind from September.

Agus brought us to meet Papa Ilung who used to be a fisherman and is currently working in the fishing industry department of the government, after that and it was an insightful sharing for the next hour or so.

A friend of Papa Ilung joined in our conversations as well and he shared about his time back in the 1990s when he was involved in the shipping of shark fin in Sulawesi to Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau. Back then, the dried processed fins fetched 200,000rp (approx USD200) per kilo but today they rack up to 1,000,000rp (approx USD1000) per kilo given the increased number of buyers and depleted sharks in the oceans. Thankfully, the hamerhead sharks south of Lombok off Belongas Bay remain mostly untouched as the fishermen venture to Irian and the Sumbawa Island to fish sharks. Apparently the shores off Lombok have a 12 mile territorial limitation the fishermen cannot fish within but as they venture further out at sea to the Zonal Economic Exclusives (ZEE) area, sometimes they encroach into Australian territorial limitations and end up being caught, jailed and their boats being confiscated for good. A very common bait used for the long lines being tuna, Papa Ilung showed us the hook lines he used to attach to long lines for baiting big fishes back in the day.

It was a fruitful night and the possibility of meeting the government authorities within the next few days, with a proposal for change after checking out the situation in Tanjung Luar again in the next few days, was an illuminating start to the return trip.

Lombok recce – shark fishing and trading

My first trip to Lombok to check up on the shark fishing / finning there proved eventful indeed.

We woke up bright and early for 2 out of the 4 days I had in Lombok, to have Agus take us down to the fish market at Tanjung Luar where a couple of environmental groups had already visited with regards to the growing catches of endangered marine life including thresher sharks, hammerhead sharks and manta rays. On our first visit, we saw 3 juvenile sized sharks being brought in, a young hammerhead and thresher among them. Heart wrenching as it was to see them dead even before I could get to dive with any of them, I knew I was here on a mission to find out more and I definitely had to keep my emotions at bay and in check as we asked questions with the help of Agus. We saw a rich looking Indonesian eyeing the shark carcasses as he measured the length of their fins with his fingertips, walking circles around them and it wasn’t long before another one came with a huge knife to hack off the fins from the sharks. Gathered, they came up to about a kilogram in weight and costed USD600. Compared to the shark meat which only cost USD1.50 per kilo, the fin was heavily prized. About an hour later, another boat came in and we saw 6 more reef sharks brought in, each about 2meters in length. As they were lugged into the market area, we met a student from the Mataram University who had been researching on sharks caught at Tanjung Luar for the past 6 months already, he had all the data on the average numbers, (43! our first day there was a lull as a result of the Ramadan) the species and lengths of the catch brought in every other day. It was surreal to see the fin traders borrow the student’s tape measure when they saw he had one, to measure out the length of the fins and determine their worth. We did not stay to watch the actual removal of fins for the second batch but it was sobering enough a first visit, especially since there was a sign by the fish market that said thresher sharks and dolphins were not allowed to be caught, which was all but half ripped.

On our second visit, I was rather thankful to not see any sharks being brought in but one fisherman actually had a basin of 4 baby sharks which were quickly snapped up before we could see it happen. We managed to interview a fishermen who shared about his experiences baiting sharks and the kind of life he led. It was a tough one and they had to be out at sea for up to 17 days without any guarantee of good catch. It was harsh and dangerous with no promise of  a stable income and sadly, his wife had left him after he had been out at sea too much. He was kind enough to bring us to his village just by the fish market so we could get a glimpse of their lives. With information that dolphins could be spotted in December, at least that glimmer for me that we could offer up dolphin watching as alternative tourism livelihood to keep the fishermen from the sharks.

Here is more information with jarring images about what used to be dolphin killing (but the shark killing is still ongoing) at Lombok, by Paul Hilton:

http://www.paulhiltonphotography.com/index.php/field-notes/41