Saving Wildlife, Saving Wild Places (Wildlife Conservation Society)

1. Unregulated industrial fishing operations and irresponsible whale-watching businesses are depleting marine resources and significantly reducing populations of fish and sea mammals.

2. WCS helped create Madagascar’s first law overseeing whale-watching operations, aimed at making sure that the region’s growing ecotourism industry generates revenue for local residents and is safe for humpbacks and other whale species.

3. Illegal fisheries, poaching, pollution, habitat disturbance, and global climate change threaten sea turtle nesting sites.

4. Increasing numbers of domestic and foreign fishing boats, many of them unlicensed, go into the territorial waters of the Congo Basin Coast to fish illegally. These boats kill fish, sharks, and rays at unsustainable levels, and their nets pose a critical threat to vulnerable populations of sea turtles and coastal dolphins that are captured unintentionally as by-catch.

5. Overfishing and destructive practices such as dynamite and cyanide fishing are depleting fish populations and damaging coral reef habitats at alarming rates in Karimunjawa.

6. The rise in ocean temperature and acidification brought on by a warming climate further jeopardize the ability of corals and marine wildlife to grow and thrive.

7. Since Karimunjawa was rezoned, the degradation of coral reefs has slowed and management has improved considerably

8. The uncontrolled harvest of sea turtles and their eggs from the Pearl Cays’ waters and beaches threatens the long-term survival of these endangered reptiles

9. Green sea turtles are facing commercial and eventual ecological extinction, compromising a potentially viable local fishery.

10. The WCS is now working with partners to create a network of marine protected areas designed with community support to protect the outstanding coral reefs and marine wildlife of the Aceh-Weh Seascape.