The Worst Images of All Were...

The sea is beautiful above. Below—I hope so.

I first read about Shell Horizons, Inc. last April while I was nosing around Twitter for the Willing Willie child abuse complaint. I do not watch Revillame’s show and I wasn’t able to see the episode where the alleged macho-dance occurred. One tweet led to another and to another tweet with a link to the Shell Horizons, Inc.’s website. The tweet said something like, ‘saving the Philippine seas from illegal coral mining.’

The homepage sports an old look that was common among the HTML-based sites of the late 90’s and early 2000’s.  It does have a small Flash clip.  The homepage advertises Shell Horizons, Inc. as the ‘US Largest Wholesaler of Seashells and Seashell Products Since 1976.’  The site’s counter also stated that it has been visited over 10 million times since 1998. I’d say the homepage design works—I got interested to view the rest of the pages.

I first started browsing their products and was surprised to see that they sold, aside from seashells, sea fans—a type of soft coral. I continued browsing around the products page but I never found out where they harvest their products.

I went to check on their contact information. It stated that they only use products from non-endangered species. Also found on the same page is a grainy image of Filipinos, with the shells, with a caption dedicated the families that make the shellcraft industry possible. The people in the picture were all smiles but something in the image brought about sadness. 

It was surprising to learn that an American company could exploit our Philippine seas and could get away with it. 

I was more surprised when I click on the ‘About Us’ page. It wasn’t like any other ‘About Us’ page, it was an image gallery. The images depicted include harvesting shells, cleaning the shells and the firm's finished products. There was also an image of a Christmas tree, made of shells, in the White House’s Palm Room. The worst images of all were—surprise, surprise— the hoards and hoards of corals. 

Join the June 8 Blog Action Day to Save our Coral Reefs and Seas!

I just signed up to join the June 8 Blog Action Day to Save the Philippine Coral Reefs and Seas. I would like to invite you guys to join us in this fight to protect our marine resources. Below is  an announcement from the Save the Philippine Seas website: 

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Our beautiful and diverse marine resources and wealth need your attention and your help. They are under attack.

Exploitative foreign firms, in tandem with local partners and left unchecked by irresponsible government officials, are illegally harvesting and peddling our precious coral reefs. In one case, coral reefs twice the size of Manila was destroyed, and the plunder continues.

We cannot accept this. We must act now to save what’s left of our coral reefs and to protect our seas so those beautiful and important natural resources are preserved for our and the next generations to enjoy.

We call on all Filipino bloggers, Tumblr and Posterous users, Tweeps, Plurkers and all netizens to join the June 8 International Blog Action Day to save our seas and coral reefs. Your voices, our actions are that important.

What we will do:

• Tweet, Plurk, or post to spread the word about this event: Share or repost this announcement (and please link back to the original post).
• Use the Twitter hashtag #reefwatchPH and/or #savePHseas.
• Spread the savephilippineseas.com URL.
• Display and share our official campaign badge.
• Register your website/blog to let us know that you’re joining our effort to spread the word — you’ll find the registration form on the sidebar of this site. If you’re using more than one site (no Facebook or Twitter URLs, please), register each of them separately.
• Most importantly, on June 8, join the Blog Action Day from your favorite social media channels (blog, Tumblr, Posterous, Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, etc.)

Some ideas and suggestions

While the issue is serious, there are a lot of creative ways to send our message across on or before June 8:

An open letter to officials and companies.

• A photo essay about your favorite beaches or dive spots.
• Design and share mini-posters, posters and drawings.
• If you grew up near a beach, tell us about your fond memories.
• Post about why your (future) kids and future grandkids ought to have the chance to see and enjoy our coral reefs and seas.
• Why harvesting and peddling corals is bad for the environment and is bad business.
• Proposals on how to protect or clean up our seas.
• If you belong to a clan, group, or organization, invite them to join the event.
• Taking an extra step or two won’t harm too. You may email your senator, congressman, the Environment secretary, and even the President to demand action.

NOW is the time to act

We can do this. Let’s make our social media work for something good. Let’s make the Philippine coral reefs, seas and the need to save them the trend – to raise awareness, to inspire action, to grow our communities, and to compel government action.

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Originally posted by Tonyo Cruz on the Save the Philippine Seas website.