Kozhikode (Kerala): In a hard-hitting reminder to the human race to look back at what has been lost, Kerala opened the world’s first marine cemetery.
Cemeteries are commonly built for humans, but God’s Own Country has one for fish too, for they too have been victims to the crazy lifestyle of human beings.
The tombs are not made using cement and stones, instead, these are iron structures that are filled with single-use plastic bottles and as per sources, more than 200 single-use plastic bottles have been used to make these tombs.
The place is at Beypore seashore in Kozhikode and the cemetery has been built by Jellyfish Watersports, under Green Beach Mission, District Administration, Kozhikode, with support of Beypore Port Authority and driven by Aakash Rainson.
Inaugurated on December 4, 2019, on World Wildlife Conservation Day, the gravestones have the photographs of endangered species or extinct fish including one freshwater fish – Miss Kerala (Sahyadria denisonii).
The entire project tries to put across a serious point that plastic usage is wreaking havoc on marine life. Parrotfish, Leatherback turtles, Eagle Rays, Sawfish, Dugong, Zebra shark, Hammerhead shark, and Miss Kerala have been marked as endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
It is believed that water and plastic pollution along with overexploitation and climate change have caused the extinction of 15 marine species, and currently threaten the lives of 700 more.
