1,000 Pieces of Plastic Found Inside Dead Whale in Indonesia – By Daniel Victor – The New York Times

By Daniel Victor

• Nov. 21, 2018

“More than 1,000 assorted pieces of plastic, including 115 cups, 25 bags, four bottles and two flip-flops, have been found inside a dead sperm whale in Indonesia, according to local officials.

The whale, found washed ashore Monday in Wakatobi National Park, was already decomposing when rescuers arrived, so investigators were unable to determine if the plastic caused its death, said Lukas Adhyakso, the conservation director of the World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia. The plastic weighed about six kilograms, or 13 pounds, he said.

But images of the dead whale resonated in Indonesia, a country that has started to reckon with its outsize use of plastics. Indonesia, a nation of about 260 million people spread over thousands of islands in Southeast Asia, was the world’s second-biggest producer of plastic waste in 2015, behind only China, according to a study in the journal Science.”

Source: 1,000 Pieces of Plastic Found Inside Dead Whale in Indonesia – The New York Times

Indonesia’s Orangutans Suffer as Fires Rage and Businesses Grow – The New York Times

“Katty is an orangutan, about 9 months old, whose family is believed to have been killed by the huge fires last fall in the Indonesian regions of Borneo and Sumatra. The blazes are an annual occurrence, when farmers clear land by burning it, often for palm oil plantations. But last year’s fires were the worst on record, and scientists blamed a prolonged drought and the effects of El Niño.The blazes destroyed more than 10,000 square miles of forests, blanketing large parts of Southeast Asia in a toxic haze for weeks, sickening hundreds of thousands of people and, according to the World Bank, causing $16 billion in economic losses.They also killed at least nine orangutans, the endangered apes native to the rain forests of Borneo and Sumatra. More than 100, trapped by the loss of habitat or found wandering near villages, had to be relocated. Seven orphans, including five infants, were rescued and taken to rehabilitation centers here.”

Source: Indonesia’s Orangutans Suffer as Fires Rage and Businesses Grow – The New York Times

At a Bali Festival, Indonesia Enforces a Silence About Its Bloody Past – The New York Times

“JAKARTA, Indonesia — In the past 12 years, the annual Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on the Indonesian resort island of Bali has earned praise for its provocative panel discussions, book introductions and film screenings.But during this year’s five-day gathering, which ended last Sunday, it was what the international festival did not present that caused the biggest stir.Just days before the gathering opened to the first of nearly 30,000 visitors, the local authorities in the Balinese town of Ubud ordered its organizers to cancel eight events related to the bloodiest period in modern Indonesian history: the killings of an estimated 500,000 or more people during state-sponsored purges of suspected Communists and their sympathizers in 1965-66.”

Source: At a Bali Festival, Indonesia Enforces a Silence About Its Bloody Past – The New York Times