Revolusi Karapas

An open letter to my fellow turtleniks.

dear friends and friends of friends,

I come to you with urgent pressing matters. We need to kick some sense into the head of a certain Kamarudin Ibrahim, who over the past couple of years has been one of the biggest threaths to turtle conservation in Malaysia. Allow me to explain myself, why am I so harsh on this man? For one, he leads the Turtle and Marine Ecosystem Centre (TUMEC), the leading turtle and marine conservation agency in the country.

This man as it appears to me has been living in complete denial and disillusionment in regards to the status of the leatherback turtles, and it seems that he has made 'reviving leatherback turtles' a personal agenda. Recently, he has refuted a UN reported that states the leatherback turtle being 'effectively extinct', unable to understand what it means by effectively extinct, he claims that they are merely critically endangered since there were 5 landings this year. It is appaling that a man of his calibre is unable to crunch the figures and trends that would categorize the leatherbacks as being effectively extinct.

Being the head honcho of turtle conservation in the country, this man poses a threat where he can potentially drain the country's turtle conservation resources in his personal mission to revive the leatherback turtle population, which is clearly an exercise in futility. However, as long as this man is still in office, he will still churn out multi million dollar plans of penal colonies, turtle cloning, illegal turtle egg trading, and etcetra (and i say etcetra because he can potentially come up with more absurd and mind blowing ideas).

My response to this, as turtleniks, I say we try to unseat this Kamarudin through 'Revolusi Karapas'. No, I'm not asking you to take up arms, you just need to take up pen and paper and write letters to the editors. Yesterday, our dear friend Hillary Chiew wrote a wonderful front page article regarding this matter, which provided a wonderful window of oppurtnity for us to respond. Click on the following link and its related links:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/8/13/nation/15130343&sec=nation

If possible, everyone should click on it and read the article. What happens is, when the story records a substantial amount of hits, the editors will begin to relize that turtle stories do matter and may put up more of them in the future. That way, victories and atrocities (especially those of you know who) of turtle conservation will be reported more often in newspapers.

I urge all SEATRU volunteers to do this, read the article, analyze and understand it and write your opinions to the editors of various newspapers, especially the star. If there are things that you do not understand, I encourage you to seek clarification from Prof Chan personally. Send your letters to:

editor@thestar.com.my

(Please Note! Letters to the Editor must carry the sender's full name, address, telephone number and e-mail address for authentication. A pseudonym may be included. Letters may be edited for clarity, objectivity, brevity and other requirements. We will only publish letters addressed exclusively to The Editor of The Star.)

additionally send them also to:

letters@nstp.com.my
chenghai@thesundaily.com
bhsurat@bharian.com.my
online@utusan.com.my

and if any of you has the emails for the chinese press editors, do share.

It is a great loss that we should give up on the leatherback turtle, but sometimes, when enough mistakes are made... life must go on. We need to urge those in power to learn from these mistakes and apply this knowledge to the other turtle species that stands a chance.

May you have a good day ahead and may there be a future where turtles can thrive and be happy turtles.