Be prepared for a new heaven
and a new earth without seas
I refer to Daily Express’s
special report “When love to eat seafood far exceeds care” 18 March, 2018 and
would like to add some views that are surprisingly omitted. My views would be added as I go alone.
Before I go further, I would like
to list out the highlights in that special report namely Mud crab- the favourite
local seafood; High value aquaculture fish species; seventy-five per cent of
wild fish stocks are gone, going!; the
greatest threat – overfishing; astonishing industrial fishing technology rule
the oceans; huge trawling ships combing big areas of seas; when two-thirds of
oceans is free of laws; and UN’s zero overfishing target by 2020 hasn’t
happened.
Those items could be the topics
discussed at the International Conference on Marine Science & Aquaculture
held recently in Kota Kinabalu.
I am wondering so many missing very
important disturbing issues which had been regularly raised in mass media
namely environmental degradation in coastal areas, plastic trash/wastes in seas,
pollution of human wastes, unsightly settlements in coastal land without waste
disposal infrastructure, fish bombing and poisoning; illegal fishing intrusion
etc.
The various issues or topics
raised in the International Conference maybe deemed to be the big picture of
our fish resources globally but can we take note of the Biblical truth as we
are told in Revelation 21:1 (last book
in Bible) as “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the
first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”
Can we reflect
on the first Biblical book as in Genesis 1 (first book in Bible) where all
God’s creation was good and then created human being. In Genesis 1:26 26 And
God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth.”
God in Genesis
2:19 said “19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and
brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam
called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” So man was to take
care of all creations of God.
Have we failed God’s intention when most things in
the wild had been depleted by mismanagement, wilful neglect and omission of
care?
Is it too late
with such depletion of seafood resources when we have been in criminal neglect
for too long in many development although the conference speakers blamed the
causes as listed in the special report?
The main source
of fish stocks is the mangrove swamp frontier which has been dwindling over the
recent decades with much decadence as observed even around our coastline in Sabah.
Fishes are hatched and bred in mangrove swamp until they proceed to the sea for
growth in the zone of coral reefs which are similarly depleted and bleached by
rising temperature or what we call climate change. Deforestation and pollution of the seashores
do affect the quality of the mangrove swamp and the coral frontier for the
extended breeding ground where the sea and ground water meet with the right PH
of the water. That is the main reason
that the observation of seventy-five per cent of wild fish stocks are gone, going!
If only we know what the
favourite mud crabs consume in their environment likely very polluted, then we
may avoid them sending the right message.
Aquaculture may sound very good
as a solution to maintain fish/seafood supplies but it cannot be the natural
substitute for wild fishes which taste much better. Aquaculture in confined
breeding and growth habitat cannot be sustained in term of quality and
quantity. Some of those fishes could be
fed with “waste” and chemicals resulting in contaminated food. Nothing is best with the open sea unpolluted.
Do we have good
chance to regulate over fishing using new tech and increasing sizes of trawlers? Even Indonesia was bombing such trawlers
found in the sea limit. Can science find a quick solution to curb fishing by
trawlers? The rainforests were depleted
by the excessive use of the chain saws in the 1970s and now we have the fish
trawlers to do similar expedited depletion of the precious fishes of all sizes. Maybe we regulate the hours of operation of
trawlers in the open sea like we operate office daily with a meter which can
send a signal to the monitoring centre.
So the UN fails
us again when we are told “UN’s zero overfishing target by 2020 hasn’t
happened.”
We do not how the prices of
seafood in the market places are fixed without any regulation. The scenario of supply and demand maybe
faulty as prices seem to be rising and some items have very excessive price
tags. When the price tags are very high,
the profiteers would go for those items to expedite depletion until it is
extinct. There appears to be no limit to
that. The harvesters do not incur any
costs of ‘cultivation’ for the fishes in the sea except spend some effort to
bring in those abundant harvest without concern of its level of fishes in the
seas. So how do we understand the selling price of such fishes in the market
place getting more expensive by the weeks more so especially in bad weather
condition?
Do we know how much we lost when
deforestation had its toll in the late 1990s especially all the natural herbal value
for our health and biodiversity in the forests?
The double whammies is seen when the alien monocrop oil palm replaces the natural
rainforests when other valuable crops / fruit plants could also be grown side
by side to sort of maintaining some diversity.
Now do we also know how much
treasure in the oceans are to be lost? Our
diet for health can be missing when known Omega 3 in fish naturally breed in
the wild could be irreplaceable.
Our wild life in the wilderness
also dwindling.
Even around our homes in the open
spaces, much biodiversity is lost to the very efficient hand carried grass
cutting knives regularly.
Lets us spend some time in
meditation on the Biblical verse “And I saw a new heaven and a
new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there
was no more sea.”
What would
happen if that would come to pass possibly soon? Maybe we would have fishes in
mega lakes ?
Maybe with 25%
fish stock, this scenario is getting nearer and animals would emerge in
abundant in new wilderness of land.
Some of us maybe
always talking of “sustainability” for some comfort to justify “rampaging” or
ravaging without limit the earth which is definitely very much defaced and irreparable
unless God does another massive miracle for His creation- new heaven and new
earth. Would most of us still be around?
Joshua Y C Kong
22/3/2018
