Title
Of sharks, rays, skates, plastics and volunteerism
Author(s)
Gumal, Melvin T.
Published
2018
Publisher
Malaysian Naturalist
Abstract
IN EARLY 2015, while walking around a wet market in Kuching, Sarawak, I noticed the faces of some very interesting animals on the tiled-tables – wonderfully innocent, beautiful, with a beak-like mouth, and I thought “Oh my gosh, they are selling dolphin heads!” They were actually rays, but a walk around the market showed me that more were on sale. And several months more of a one-person recce survey (armed with a cell phone) proved that sharks, rays and various other interesting marine life were being caught and sold for human consumption in the markets of Sarawak. What was intriguing was how much these animals were being sold for. Rays were going for a paltry RM16/kg and sharks even cheaper – one bunch of small hammer-heads was on offer
for RM10/kg. Meanwhile, in the early 2010s, plastics as an environmental issue in Malaysia had taken root among various civil society groups, mostly focused on the huge amounts Malaysians consumed and generated as waste, as well as the great amounts we are
unable to recycle. This was because the advent of the singleuse plastic water bottle (known here as mineral water bottle) and the throwaway
attitude had permeated all ages and sectors of society. By the 2000s, birthday parties at home, conferences, company dinners at hotels and drive-ins at fast-food chains all consumed single-use plastics by the gallonload. They were in schools, brought from home and stocked for all kinds of events, from academic ones such as debates to highly physical ones such as sports days. To create excitement, corporations regularly threw in gas-flled balloons for their events; the balloons and their plastic sticks would be discarded the next day.
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