Every time I dive into the water, I see something new. I find off shore coral - mozkovníky, a cup, like a lacy fan. You can not tell where one ends and the coral where the second begins, it's a whole forest, cliff, one of the oldest coral reef in the world. Huge clam, blue starfish. There is an incredible amount of anemones and said only 872 kinds of coral fish of various sizes, colors and shapes.
I smile at the sight of humphead wrasse. And all of a sudden the darkness emerges a huge creature. Elegant figure with a span of more than four meters. Manta. A huge, majestic, elegant. Coin through the water like a giant bird cruising the ocean sky. Waving fins and is gone, only the strong impression remains.
Peace in me that this place evokes, is inspiring. It's paradise for me and turtles. Local islands are breeding grounds eighth largest card giant in the world. Throughout Southeast Asia, most turtles lay eggs right here - over 5,000 a year. That's why there's protectionists since 2002 to protect.
On the islands you can meet up čtyřkilového coconut crab, this blue giant crustacean, according to the scientists also live for sixty years. With luck, you will come across on the blue horseshoe crab blood, that kind of old 300 million years to prehistoric-looking and the universal at the same time. On the island Kakaban are endemic jellyfish, thanks to its long isolation from predators lost the ability to feel warm and so here with them you can snorkel and admire them without fear. Blue sky crisscrossing a lot of birds.
Indonesia is a beautiful country, but people here still do not feel the need to protect nature. He thinks only of immediate benefit, never on the implications for the future. Local people talking stories of how they met earlier around the islands dugongs, or sea cows. They hunted them to get out of this one beautiful teeth and three-meter animal made cigarette holder. A exterminated them.
Hawksbill turtle, sea turtles, a critically endangered with extinction, the fishermen catch for fins and nailed to wooden boards. Them alive with fire heats the upper layer of decorative shells and then truncate. Turtles then throw back into the sea as odpadek. Such a crippled, dying turtle've been in local waters when traveling to the islands met several times. Yes, she had a beautiful shell, but deserved such a death to a nearby island Derawan few tourists bought the bracelet from the shell? This sort of abomination even sell well at the international airport in Balikpapan.
It never ceases to surprise me with what course to ignore the laws. Turtles are protected here - Indonesian laws and international treaties. Fish with dynamite is prohibited for many years, but the deafening underwater explosions continued. The beach is only then rolled out thousands of pieces of broken coral, but from time to time and a dead sea turtle. I can hear the rustling of leaves, slowly approaching us young monitor lizard. It is only about a meter. While I am watching him.
A little rain. The tide. Large birds alike black storks, but with the brutal gizzards, a little macaques looking for clams among the stones in places where even two hours before the water was. We are going home. We're coming back to civilization, we recognize easily - green mangroves disappeared and I see them sacked shores, paper mills, roads, water, garbage and huge ships loaded with brown coal. Even a few months ago there were mangroves. Indonesia Nature is beautiful and defenseless.
Borneo. In books and films about nature is described as a green island. The island, where the branches of the forest giants flying birds and butterflies everywhere.
We pass the remnants of tropical rainforest. In many places smell the smoke from the burnt land rises charred tree stumps. Among the stumps stands excavator. Smiling people with bamboo hats, previously worn over the rice fields, loaded onto large trucks trunks lying on the rolling countryside. From a distance they look like matchsticks trunks spilled out of the box. Figure smoldering stumps of felled trees along the sides of the road alternates with endless plantations of palm oil-on the road with trucks passing by, what they were carrying logs of wood, with cars transporting oil palm fruits.
Elephants, bears Malaysian, orangutans and other species of rare animals are disappearing at an alarming rate due to deforestation and pollution. The number of species of endangered mammals in Indonesia 147. The timber industry, agricultural, and mining companies earn. Přelovení fish or their catch and sell to aquariums, collecting turtle eggs for food, hunting fish using cyanide, ubiquitous waste.
Indonesia is a country where exciting experiences await at every turn. I guarantee you that in a meeting with the whale shark are breathtaking. When you visit you will see an incredible amount of beautiful places, but also an incredible amount of problems of the country, where nature destroys tremendous speed and power. Biologist recognize that reality and that its discovery is the greatest adventure. A man here has only two options, either to become an ardent conservationists, depressive or a pessimist. Enjoy the beauty and diversity of the 17,000 islands until it's time.
Source: Ekolist.cz
The author Hana Svobodová studied ecology at the Faculty of Science. Actively dedicated to the protection of turtles .
