LET'S NOT CONTAMINATE OUR WORLD
LET'S KNOW TO RESPECT OTHERS SO THEY RESPECT US

We are already thinking about our vacations and many of us love the beach. Let's see what secrets the sea has in store for us.

Secrets of the Sea

When summer arrives (it is almost summer as of the time of this piece being published on this site - late November, 2004 - in the southern hemisphere), we humans feel attracted by the ocean. Multitudes congregate on the beaches in search of close contact with the marine surf which brings us pleasure and repose. However the human presence leaves its fatal imprint on those sandy beaches. Millons of plastic bags and plastics of all types are abandoned on the shoreline and the wind or the tide are in charge of dragging them into the sea. Just one nylon or plastic bag can navigate during decades without degrading. The marine tortouses confuse them with jellyfish and ingest them, drowning as they try to swallow them. Thousands of dolphins also fall in the confusion and perish, suffocated. They cannot recognize human rubbish; they simply are confused, since after all, what "floats on the sea is eaten". A plastic bottle cap, much harder or rigid than a plastic bag, can remain navegating for a long long time, inalterable!

Dr. James Ludwing who was studying the albatross on Midway island in the Pacific Ocean, far away from populated areas, came upon a frightening discovery. When he started to remove the contents of the craw of only eight dead baby albatrosses, he found: 42 plastic bottle caps, 18 cigarette lighters and floating remnants of a material that was almost entirely pieces of plastic. These chicks had been fed by their parents who obviously could not tell the difference.

The next time, when you visit your favorite beach, perhaps you will find on the sand trash that some person left behind. It may not be your trash, but it is YOUR BEACH, it is YOUR SEA, your WORLD, and you must do something for them. Many parents can play with their children the game of "Let's see... who can find the largest quantity of plastics?" as not only a fun game but an invaluable lesson in ecology. Others, in their silence, take an abandoned plastic bottle and they take it along with them to their houses, far away from the sea. You will see them pass you by with a smile on their faces, knowing that with their simple action they have saved a dolphin's life.

"It is not possible to defend what one does not love and it is not possible to love what one does not know."

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