World Oceans Day 2014: ‘Karachi kills more fish than it eats’

KARACHI:

A person living in Karachi eats around 1.8kg of fish a year but the plastic bags he/she uses adds over 25,000 pieces of plastic into the sea, and each piece can kill a fish.

These dismal statistics were shared by the director-general of the National Centre for Maritime Policy Research (NCMPR) Vice Admiral Asaf Humayun HI (M) (retd) in an interview with The Express Tribune in light of World Oceans Day, celebrated every year on June 8 all over the world.

Almost 400 million gallons of water goes into the sea but only 50 million is purified. According to the admiral, if the authorities invest more money there would be more plants to treat the dirty water. He was referring to the S3 plan among the 11 development schemes stopped by the federal government.

"Humans are careless by nature," he said. "They dump most of the garbage into the sea even though there are landfill sites available at their disposal." Landfills are basically huge spaces of land dug up to dump garbage. They become reusable after 200 years, he added. "When it comes to the sea, the sad thing is that the plastics last forever and it really affects the marine life living there," said Humayun. Pointing to the history of plastics, he explained how the crude oil sludge was used to invent plastic in the 1930s. "There are options, such as biodegradable plastics, but humankind is bent on doing things that harm nature," he regretted.

In China, almost 70 per cent of the population resides along the sea whereas, in Pakistan, only 10 per cent of the population lives along the sea, said Humayun, adding that marine life should be enjoyed by the people not ruined by them. "It's not the case that Karachi is the only city that dumps waste into the sea," he pointed out. "In fact, people in Hawaii dump so much waste in the North Pacific that there are literally floating islands of garbage four feet high." Humanyun remembers the time when the nullahs in Karachi were so safe that people would fish there.



When the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, Humayun found it interesting how people mistook garbage for debris from the aircraft. "Sometimes I wonder why we call this place Earth when almost 70 per cent of it is water," he joked, hinting at how important marine life is. "Oceans are the biggest source of oxygen and we must pledge to protect them, we owe it to the oceans."

Celebrate the oceans today

The National Centre for Maritime Policy Research Vice Admiral Asaf Humayun HI (M) (retd) said they had planned beach cleaning activities and a carnival to celebrate the World Oceans Day but they had to cancel it due to security risks in the city. However, he shared a list of things to do on the World Ocean Day this year.

Selfie for the sea

Go to the beach today with your friends and take a selfie. Post it online with the hashtag #WorldOceansDay

Wear blue

Wear some shade of blue or carry a blue accessory. Share one fact about the oceans to the people and ask them if they know it’s World Ocean Day.

Create art

You can get your friends and family together to paint a mural and draw pictures of marine animals. You can also write down your community’s promises to the sea.

Treasure hunt

You can organise a scavenger hunt with some ocean-themed prizes.

Clean up your favourite spot

It would be great if you can go to the beach and clean up a part of it. You can also get a friend or two to clean your favourite spot just around the corner,  your garage maybe?

Show a movie

You can gather people to watch ‘The Story of Stuff’ or ‘Food, Inc.’ at your house.

Seafood time

You can invite family and friends for dinner and serve fresh seafood.

Go online

If you can’t do any of these, just post about World Oceans Day on the social media of your choice

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2014.