Poaching steals life away from not only legally protected animals but also humans with the courage to protect the species poachers carelessly destroy. One of these human heroes who recently lost his life due to the crime of poaching was Jairo Mora Sandoval, whose murder on May 31 of this year stood as a saddening example of the brutality that poaching entails. Sandoval worked on Moín Beach to protect the eggs, meat, and shells of critically endangered leatherback sea turtles from poachers focused more on reaping a profit on the black market than allowing a magnificent but dwindling species to survive. These poachers threatened...and still threaten... to prevent the future existence of leatherbacks for the temporary satisfaction of material gain. Worse, as Sandoval tried to teach the public, poachers do not simply kill for money; they also kill for drugs, and drug runners added an extra element of danger to the beach at which Sandoval toiled. Valuable life is destructed so that poachers and those working with them can attain something destructive to life. As the largest of all sea turtles, leatherbacks are both a natural resource in Costa Rica drawing awed tourists to Caribbean beaches and living creatures who do not deserve to have no chance to begin their lives because of the selfish acts of humans enveloped in a world of crime.
While the details are fuzzy, what we do know is this: Sandoval and other conservationists saw enough value in the preservation of the sea turtles to dedicate hours upon hours to laboring for the animals' benefit for little pay, but the Costa Rican government has been willing to act as if almost blind to the blatantly illegal actions of poachers despite its focus on promoting an image of the country as a paradise for ecotourism. During his life, Sandoval pleaded for greater protection and government support in the national Costa Rican newspaper La Nación and took the La Nación team on a tour of the beach, where they witnessed the stronger presence of poachers than authorities. Conservationists should not have to risk their lives to do what is right while poachers continue to do what is wrong unstopped by weakly enforced laws. There is no ethical option but to honor the life and death of the murdered man by supporting his work instead of indirectly supporting the "work" of poachers through apathy. Inaction sends poachers the message that killing and drug dealing are acceptable. Poachers have been implementing their own brute "government" over Moín Beach, rendering environmentalists powerless a year before Sandoval's death when they approached a guarded sea turtle hatchery carrying AK-47 rifles (powerful weapons not even carried by the police), taking the communication devices of the volunteers along with 1,520 leatherback eggs. Mora's murder was another expression of the confidence of poachers that their lawless actions give them power - a confidence that the government must break.
We can neither ignore or forget the tainted focus of poaching, a trade which values money and even drugs over animal - and human - life. Challenge poaching and help change Sandoval's death from a victory of poachers casting fear over conservationists to an impetus for progress in allowing life, not death, to have victory on Costa Rica's beaches by signing this petition:
http://action.seaturtles.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=13612
For more of the sadly true story of Jairo Mora Sandoval's death, please visit:
Washington Post on Sandoval
ABC News on Sandoval
National Geographic on Sandoval
Costa Rican Times on Sandoval
Sandoval in La Nacion
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