A Tear For Si'an Kaan (Plastics!)

This post comes from a blog named The Dream Antilles:

The Si'an Kaan Bio-reserve is 1.3 million acres of protected land in the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico, about 2 hours south of Cancun, near Tulum. "Sian Ka’an" is translated from Mayan as "where the sky is born" or "gift from the sky". I was there just a few days ago. . . .

I drove from Tulum down the Tulum-Boca Paila Beach Road all the way to Punta Allen, a small lobster and fishing village on a spit of land where the reserve ends and Asuncion Bay begins. Punta Allen is famous for sport fishing for permit, tarpon and bone fish.

All the way down the difficult, bumpy road, there are beautiful white sand, palm tree lined beaches. All the way down the coral reef shelters the land from direct contact with the ocean. All the way down there is spotless turquoise water reflecting a blue sky. The air is filled with birdsong. The water is filled with creatures.

Except one thing. The water isn't really spotless. And that's why I have a tear. I have a tear because there is too much plastic in paradise. And I cannot help but see it.

Some of the beaches that face the wind and the open sea are littered with plastic. All of the usual civilized species are there: blue plastic jugs, old shoes, plastic bags, bottles, packaging, plastic coke bottles, old nylon ropes, auto parts, light bulbs, sunscreen tubes. How so? Because nobody lives on a particular beach, nobody picks up the plastic on that beach. It's unlike the beach near my home, which gets a plastic pick up every Sunday from residents. It's unlike my beach because nobody takes responsibility for removing the plastic, for picking it up, for returning it to the appropriate stream for garbage. My home beach in Bahia Soliman is spotless. And it's spotless solely because my neighbors make sure it stays plastic free. This has been a decade long preoccupation for us. . . .

That's why I urge everyone who walk on a beach to carry a bag and to pick up some plastic and throw it in the garbage. Yes, I know this doesn't really solve anything permanently. It's just a start and a gesture in the right direction.

Until we begin to think about how we use plastic, we don't really deserve paradise as perfect, as abundant, as wild as Sian Ka'an.