Researchers warn that Myanmar's Mergui archipelago should be made a protected area before the signs of human-caused pollution reach its unspoiled waters.
Imagine this, says Marine biologist Manuel Marinelli, as he paints a picture of unbearable cruelty: Somewhere in the African savanna, two vehicles connected by a 200-meter-long barbed-wire fence plough overland, clothes-lining zebras, lions, gazelles, and elephants. From their catch, gazelles are plucked and sold as steak. The rest, now dead, is left to rot.
"If anybody did that, they would go to jail," says Marinelli, a former Greenpeace bottom-trawling expert. "But that's what is happening underwater every single day." Most of what happens to marine life, he adds, happens out of sight and out of people's minds. The same disregard applies to plastic waste in the oceans, he told DW.
Last month, the Austrian native and founder of nonprofit Project Manaia sailed to the pristine coastal region of the Mergui Archipelago, where 800 islands lie off the coast of Myanmar and stretch down beyond the border with Thailand.
The country's isolation for the past 60 years has granted the sea there rich coral cover and ensured the continued and colorful existence of 365 species of reef fish. (Courtesy of dw.com)
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