Saturday 2 February 2013

700 – 1000 dolphins killed in Solomon Islands


2011 agreement to stop dolphin slaughter didn't last long
January 2013. In July 2011 the Earth Island Institute announced that the people of the Solomon Islands had halted their dolphin hunting practice. On the island of Malaita, three villages had for decades been engaged in dolphin hunting. The meat was eaten, and the teeth have been used as a form of money. But the villagers told Earth Island representatives that the dolphins were getting harder to find, and the fishermen had to paddle out farther and farther to find them and haul them back to the island.

Earth Island Institute reached an important agreement so the villagers pledged to stop killing dolphins, and Earth Island pledged to raise funding that could be used to support projects for sustainable fishing, alternative energy, and sanitation/clean water. Earth Island provided $21,000 each to two villages. A third village that formulated a similar agreement was given $3,000.

700-1000 dolphins killed
However, it appears that something has gone badly wrong with this agreement, and now some 700-1000 dolphins have been killed by some villagers, apparently as they claim that the money there were promised has not been forthcoming, though this is disputed by the Earth Island Institute. The International Marine Mammal Project (A project run by the Earth Island Institute) claims that the original agreement stands, and that a renegade bunch of villagers have killed the dolphins. 

Either way, as ever, it is the dolphins that are suffering terribly.

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