FSP-Microcosm News-Global Community Report: Indonesia

Showing posts with label Indonesia. Show all posts

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Plastic for dinner: A quarter of fish sold at markets contain human-made debris

September 24, 2015

Man holding a big fish to the camera in a fish market with baskets of fish in the background

UC Davis researchers found plastic and fibrous debris in 25 percent of the fish sold in Indonesian and California markets. (Dale Trockel/photo)

Roughly a quarter of the fish sampled from fish markets in California and Indonesia contained human-made debris — plastic or fibrous material — in their guts, according to a study from the University of California, Davis, and Hasanuddin University in Indonesia.
The study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, is one of the first to directly link plastic and human-made debris to the fish on consumers’ dinner plates.

“It’s interesting that there isn’t a big difference in the amount of debris in the fish from each location, but in the type — plastic or fiber,” said lead author Chelsea Rochman, a David H. Smith postdoctoral fellow in the Aquatic Health Program at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “We think the type of debris in the fish is driven by differences in local waste management.”

‘Waiter, there’s some plastic in my fish’

The researchers sampled 76 fish from markets in Makassar, Indonesia, and 64 from Half Moon Bay and Princeton in California. All of the fragments recovered from fish in Indonesia were plastic. In contrast, 80 percent of the debris found in California fish was fibers, whereas not a single strand of fiber was found in Indonesian fish.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Survey shows extent of sexual violence in region where 70% of men report facing no legal consequences

Nearly quarter of men in Asia-Pacific admit to committing rape

Kate Hodal
The Guardian, Monday 9 September 2013

Papua New Guinea recorded the heaviest prevalence of rape. Photograph: Rocky Roe/AFP/Getty Images

Nearly a quarter of men in the Asia-Pacific region have admitted to committing rape at least once in their life, according to a new survey (pdf), with more than half of those respondents claiming they raped for the first time while in their teens.
The study covering six countries – Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka – found that 10% of men admitted to raping at least once a woman who was not their partner, a figure that rose to nearly 25% when rape of a partner was included.
Nearly 75% of those who had committed rape said they did so because they felt sexually entitled; more than half said they did it for entertainment.
The UN-led study on men and violence collected data from more than 10,000 men and 3,000 women aged 18-49 between 2010 and 2013 in order to understand why men commit violence against women and what can be done to prevent it.
The findings are significant because the Asia-Pacific region is home to over half of the world's population, making the amount and range of information collected "unprecedented and ground-breaking", said Dr Emma Fulu of Partners for Prevention, the joint-UN programme that co-ordinated the study.
"This is really the first time we've had data on rape perpetration on this scale, not just in the region but in the world, and I think it probably suggests rape is more widespread than we had thought, and the perpetration of rape starts earlier than people perhaps thought, which really highlights the need to start working with younger boys and girls to stop the violence," she said.

Read More Here

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Raja the Baby Elephant : An image that will haunt you and a story that will enrage you

Anyone with even an inkling of compassion would mourn the suffering and the loss of this innocent life. The mourning is doubled by the knowledge that more and more often it is becoming obvious that humans are losing their humanity. There is no regard for life, there is no regard for suffering. Humanity has been lost to greed and callous indifference. I choose not to use ignorance because even one who is ignorant understands that a living being has the capacity to suffer. Ignorance does not nullify the ability to feel compassion. This cruelty , this callous indifference to life is not ignorance it is EVIL.

~Desert Rose~
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The terrible fate of Raja the baby elephant, chained and held hostage by an angry mob: An image that will haunt you and a story that will enrage you

In this shocking expose the Duchess of Cornwall's brother reveals how baby elephant Raja was shockingly mistreated as he was kept captive in Sumatra. Following the deforestation of the land to produce palm oil, elephants have been forced to live with humans, destroying farms, flattening houses and sometimes killing people. Villagers took Raja, and demanded compensation after his family ruined crops in the area.

By Mark Shand
PUBLISHED: 16:02 EST, 29 June 2013 | UPDATED: 04:45 EST, 2 July 2013
In all the 30 years I have been working in Asian elephant conservation, I thought I had seen it all – blatant corruption, the rape and total disregard of our beautiful planet and sickening wildlife atrocities, to name but a few. All due to the most dangerous animal of all: homo sapiens.
Not much shocks me any more, but something happened in recent weeks that shook me to the core when the charity Elephant Family and the Ecologist Film Unit set out to document the environmental genocide that is out of control on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia.
Sumatra is special to me because I spent a lot of time there on expeditions when I was younger. It was a paradise – vast pristine forests, intact coral reefs and abundant wildlife.

Raja is a male baby elephant found in north Aceh, villagers found him roaming community plantation and held him captive

All this has changed now and their elephants are the most endangered on the planet. In a single generation, the population has been cut in half, with countless other animals disappearing at breakneck speed.
During the filming, a helpless, emaciated baby male elephant called Raja, who was barely a year old, was found in a village, shackled with heavy chains to a tree. He had been taken hostage by the villagers, who were demanding compensation from the Sumatran government for the damage his family had done to their crops.
Can you believe that we are now living in a world where people are actually holding baby elephants to ransom? It is almost unthinkable. But just look at the photographs – look at Raja, as he strains against his chains, waving his little trunk for food and reassurance. He is bellowing in desperation for his mother.

Can you believe that we are now living in a world where people are actually holding baby elephants to ransom?

He strains against his chains, waving his little trunk for food and reassurance. He is bellowing in desperation for his mother

I have heard that sound of distressed calves many times in my life. It never fails to haunt me. But it is his eyes that haunt me more than anything – pleading for help – innocent, desperate and helpless.
A war is being waged across Asia. In the face of relentless deforestation, elephants are being forced out of their natural habitats and they have no choice but to share their living space with humans. As the elephants’ forest home is destroyed, stressed and starving herds flee from the chainsaws straight into villages.
They demolish everything in sight, trampling crops, flattening houses and often killing people. Frankly, you really cannot blame the villagers for taking such drastic steps in the sheer desperation to survive and feed their own families.
Capturing a baby elephant and holding it to ransom is grisly and depressing, but it is reality as humans and elephants fight for space.
People need to know why this is happening. They need to understand what is driving this madness.

Read More and View Video Here