Day at the Beach

Missing seaweed, sea slugs and natural beaches, I decided to walk the entire stretch of Jumeirah Beach (from Jumeirah Beach Hotel to Mercato Mall) one day. It didn't occur to me that it was a Friday till I reached the beach and noticed the chaos there.

The stretch of beach next to Jumeirah Beach Hotel was packed with people. Young and old, Caucasian, Indian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern… There were kids picking seashells and building sandcastles...

Half naked men and bikini clad women soaking up the sun, and two men playing cricket, not bothered about the fact that the tennis ball they were batting might hit a child or passerby.

Then there were hunky surfer dudes, either riding the waves or checking out girls.

White sails dotted the horizon, with the Dubai Offshore Sailing Club not too far from this beach.

I walked to the far end of this beach and found nothing. There was nothing on the shore that was alive (except for the humans of course) – only scattered seashells plus a few seagulls soaring above.

The beach is divided by a marina, cordoned off by a rock wall and barbed wire. The rich and elite of Dubai were enjoying the ‘weekend’ too, taking their boats and yachts out for a ‘swim’.

The next stretch of beach I came across was deserted, as it was not as artificially flat and white as the one before.

However, I still did not spot anything here except for vacant shells and broken bits of coral.

After a while, an Indian couple came by, and to my wonder, performed some sort of Hindu ritual right before my eyes. The lady removed a large, wooden statue of a reclining Ganesha from a bag, placed it in the sand, and walked around it three times. Then she scattered the few flowers she was holding in her hands over the statue. The man with her then picked the statue up and threw it into the sea.

The waves of course washed the statue back ashore, so the man threw the statue back again, a few times, without luck. Finally, the couple climbed the rock bund at the end of the beach and threw Ganesha into the open sea.

After the couple left, an Arab couple arrived, choosing this more secluded beach to set up their ‘payung’ and do a bit of sunbathing.

This stretch of beach also ended with a man-made rock wall, separating it from another marina. So I continued, till I came to the next beach, and the next, and the next, till the sun set and my legs could not take me any further.


My finds for the day…

Sand collar of a moon snail

Sand Star (dead)

Limpet?

Cuttlefish "skeleton"

The beaches are so ‘clean’ that you don’t even see seaweed, so spotting an occasional sliver of algae became some sort of “Desperate Search For Weed”.

Sargassum sp.

Next ‘discovery beach walk’ - the other stretch of beach, from Umm Suqeim to Jebel Ali. I hope to find more there, as there used to be a marine sanctuary at the far tip of Jebel Ali (closer to Abu Dhabi). The Palm Jebel Ali is being developed at this same location (taking over the marine SANCTUARY itself), so this means more walls, barbed wire, tighter security, a lot of sedimentation and maybe even devastation of marine life.

When is enough ENOUGH?

The newspapers in Dubai are always full of typo errors, all the time. So when I read this article “More sharks than estimated killed for fin soup” in the Khaleej Times (October 28, 2006), I wasn’t sure if they got their figures right. Firstly it states that "up to four times more sharks than previously thought are being slaughtered to fill the increasing demand for shark fin soup".

According to this article, it’s estimated that anually, between 26 MILLION – 73 MILLION SHARKS, weighing up to 2.29 MILLION TONNES, are killed for their fins.

According to the Shark Alliance, sharks are among the ocean’s most threatened animals due to overfishing, and because they grow slowly, mature late and produce few young.

There are so many causes to fight for – the environment, poverty, AIDS, pink ribbon, yellow ribbon, blue this and green that… Even if we narrow it down to just marine conservation, there are still so many areas that need our attention. So many diferrent sea creatures and organisms and the ocean itself, needing a human voice to fight their cause.

We need more voices to speak up against pollution in our waters caused by dredging, reclamation, etc. Small voices, speaking up to corporate big wigs. Hard luck, but it’s a start.

We need more volunteers to help create awareness and educate the public about conserving our environment before it’s too late. To realise that serious damage has been done, and is still being done, and we won’t have anything left to conserve if we continue being selfish, taking from nature till there’s no more.

All these little voices that cry out, all these little hands that try to make a difference… Is anyone taking notice? Well some of us think, it’s small, but it’s a start. If you can influence one person out of ten, to stop collecting seashells or to say no to shark’s fin soup, it’s a start. You’ve made a difference.

But I say, it’s not enough. There’s a Malay saying that goes, “Sedikit-sedikit, lama-lama menjadi bukit” meaning, bit by bit, day by day, it will make a difference. But it’s not enough. There’s too little good being done to counter the bad. It’s like 1% conservation versus 99% destruction. We are taking too much, too soon, giving too little, too late.

We have organisations all over Singapore, and all over the world, fighting for all sorts of rights and causes. Blue Water Volunteers, Green Volunteers Network, Shark Alliance, UNESCO, Greenpeace… It’s not enough. We need more volunteers, plus support from the government and the media, to educate the masses.

Volunteering for a good cause is not easy in Singapore. Unless you are backed by big corporations or the government, with big funds, able to carry out big charity events filled with big celebrities. This is how you reach out to the masses, not bit by bit, day by day. How many times have you seen features on TV about dialysis, breast cancer, the yellow ribbon project, or even about dengue? Out of the millions who watch TV, how many take notice and make a difference? Now compare that with the difference volunteers make without much help from the media. It’s not much. It’s not enough.

The answer lies with the people. The future of Singapore’s environment lies with Singaporeans. Singaporeans who are ignorant or just plain selfish. The government, through the media, tells the people what they want to hear, or what they think they should hear. For example, The Yellow Ribbon Project. It’s a good cause, but what makes it more important than any of the other causes that don’t get airtime? Why no public awareness campaigns about the effects of dredging in Singapore waters? Why no campaigns against the sale of shark’s fin soup in restaurants throughout Singapore?

With campaigns like The Yellow Ribbon Project, the government wants the people to believe that everyone deserves a second chance, and eventually, Singaporeans will believe that the government is one that cares for them, giving everyone equal opportunity. So the selfish or ignorant Singaporean thinks, the government is working for me. So the people voice their concerns to the government, who will indeed help them. They complain about the hike in bus fares, MRT fares, taxi fares, complain that there’s no sheltered walkway at their HDB estate, complain, complain, complain. All about how the government can better improve the standard of living in Singapore.

Who’s gonna be crazy enough to go to his MP and say, “Mister MP Sir, we don’t mind paying more for MRT fares if this means it will make Singapore a cleaner place to live and breathe in.”

Or “Mister MP Sir, Singapore should say No to the import of shark’s fin because I’d rather have my future grandchildren visit Sentosa to see real sharks than to look at pictures of extinct sharks in history books”.

Your everyday selfish and ignorant Singaporean isn’t gonna do that.

It’s not easy for small groups of volunteers to reach out to the rest of selfish Singapore or the world. So do we go to the top? Do we speak to restaurant owners and show them horrid pictures of finned sharks left to bleed to death at the bottom of the ocean? [Read about ‘finning’ below] Do we hope it tickles their conscience that they have the blood of all these dead sharks on their hands just for a few bowls of soup?

That’s not gonna work either ‘cos the selfish and ignorant Singaporean is gonna walk in to that restaurant, look at the menu, and then complain to the manager and all his friends and maybe even Mister MP that “this restaurant supposed to be high class one… but got no shark’s fin leh”.

People demand, companies supply, the industry thrives, and another plant or animal is added to the endangered or extinct list.

And this is just the Shark Fin Cause. There are still so many other marine creatures, terrestrial animals, plants, trees, the air, the land, the ocean… all asking us to think less about our own selves, and to think about humanity and Earth as a whole. Just look at Earth’s timeline, from the Pre-Cambrian period, 3800 million years ago till now.

Life on Earth began in the Ocean. Sea sponges, sea lilies and corals existed since the Pre-Cambrian and Cambrian periods, more than 500 million years ago. From 245 million to 65 million years ago, dinosaurs walked the earth. 60 million years ago, Earth was flora and fauna paradise, with all sorts of plants and flowers, creatures big and small, thriving in a beautiful world.

Then came the time of man, just 200,000 years ago. In the few years that man has walked the earth, we have managed to wipe out most of what was naturally beautiful on Earth.

We are our worst enemy with an unquenchable appetite for destruction. Even creatures as big as dinosaurs could only have been wiped out by something huge like a giant meteorite or the Ice Age. With our greedy hands, narrow minds and selfish beings, we have resided on this beautiful planet for less than a day if compared to the BILLIONS of years the Earth has survived. And yet we have managed to cause so much destruction.

Some of us are doing something. But it’s not enough. The rest of us go through life like it’s one big buffet or warehouse sale, taking as much as we can, as quickly as possible, but it’s never enough.

26 to 73 MILLION sharks are killed annually for their fins. Do we really need that much soup to satisfy our appetite?

The Shark Fin Trade
Shark fishing is condoned because sharks are an important source of protein in certain parts of the world. However, it is the high value and demand for fins that endangers sharks, when finning is practised.

‘Finning’ refers to the practice of cutting off only the shark fins, usually while the sharks are still alive. Shark meat is too low in value so the sharks are thrown back into the ocean to conserve space on a fishing vessel. The fin-less sharks then drown or bleed to death. Divers have discovered hundreds of dead finned sharks at the bottom of the ocean in massive shark graveyards.

I love soups – Asian, Western, light, creamy… and I used to enjoy shark fin soup too, till I read an article in Fins magazine and saw pictures of the shark graveyards. Shark fin only provides gelatinous bulk in shark fin soup as it is tasteless. So if it’s the taste of shark fin soup that you enjoy, it’s actually just chicken or some sort of ‘superior’ stock.

Although shark fin is considered by the Chinese as a tonic, it has little nutritional value, and may even be harmful over the long term as shark fins contain high levels of mercury.

If you’re planning a Chinese banquet dinner, like say, for a wedding, please look at the pictures and think twice before planning the menu. Relatives can bitch all they want about not getting shark fin soup, but at least you’ll know that on this beautiful day, you’ve made a difference and saved a shark or two.