1. Iced tea Sure, a glass of iced tea will help dispel the heat of a summer day, but did you know that it also has health benefits? Research shows that if you drink tea regularly, you can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s and diabetes, along with healthier teeth and stronger bones. Tea is rich in antioxidants called flavonoids. Regardless of the type, from black tea, green tea, oolong tea, white tea or herbal tea, flavonoids will maximize their benefits while the tea is fresh. If you want to keep your tea refrigerated, “add a little lemon juice to it,” advises Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, director of the Antioxidant Research Laboratory at the Center for Human Nutrition Research. of the USDA at Tufts University in Boston, says the citric acid and vitamin C in lemon or orange juice will help preserve the flavonoids present in the tea for longer. 2. Watermelon Watermelon maintains enough water to help you have a clear memory and stable mood. Water also helps cool the body (by sweating) on ​​hot summer days. The good news is that water can also be provided through a variety of foods, like watermelon. In addition to containing the skin-protecting lycopene, 92% of watermelon is water. Eating water-rich foods will help you feel satisfied with fewer calories (interestingly, drinking water with food doesn’t have the same effect). 3. Tomatoes Sunscreen helps protect your skin from the harsh summer sun. Tomatoes too, they work to provide you with an extra layer of skin protection from within the body. In tomatoes, there are carotene pigments (provitamin A) that give tomatoes their red color, helping to consume more lycopene, which protects the skin from sunburn. In one study, when volunteers were exposed to ultraviolet light, almost 50% of them experienced less redness after eating teaspoon of tomato paste in addition to their regular diet for 10-12 weeks. . However, in the same study, people who received only lycopene or synthetic lycopene did not have significant protection from sunburn. 4. Coffee Drinking just 1 cup of coffee a day can help reduce the risk of skin cancer. In a study of more than 93,000 women, published in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention, those who drank a single cup of coffee a day had an increased risk of melanoma. reduced by about 10%. The more they drank, up to six cups a day, the lower the risk. Caffeinated foods do not seem to have this effect. 5. Corn Corn contains lutein and zeaxanthin, two unique provitamin A substances found in the retina, capable of acting as a natural filter, helping to form retinal pigment, blocking some harmful rays in sunlight. Sun. Corn also helps reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in patients over 60 years of age. 6. Cherry Cherries offer a host of health benefits. You may have heard that drinking tart cherry juice can give you a good night’s sleep and help manage post-workout pain. In sour cherries, there are also substances that can make your body slimmer because cherries contain anthocyamine, a substance capable of activating a molecule that helps speed up fat burning and reduce fat storage. redundant. 7. Raspberry Raspberries are a great source of fiber, one of which is dissolved in the form of pectin, which is a cholesterol-lowering substance. 1 cup of raspberries contains about 8 grams of fiber. Research published in the Journal of Nutrition suggests that eating more fiber helps prevent weight gain and even promotes weight loss. After two years of research, scientists found that when adding 8g of fiber for every 1000 calories in the diet, the volunteers lost about 2 kg of weight. Test yourself. If you are using 2000 calories per day, try to increase the fiber in your diet to 16 grams and feel the difference. 8. Blueberries Fresh blueberries contain antioxidants that can help ward off muscle fatigue by scavenging free radicals produced by muscles during activity, according to a recent New York study. Zealand. Illustration.

Set of 3 impressive BONCHA Honey Tea with a novel combination of pure honey and green tea trà Whoever “reads” the customer will win Before BONCHA appeared, bottled green teas on the Vietnamese non-alcoholic beverage market were very popular. But very few brands can combine the two ingredients of green tea and honey in a creative and diverse way. Winning from the product idea, hitting the “hole” of the market, UNIBEN pioneered to open a completely new definition for bottled tea: Honey Tea, supplemented with 100% Pure Honey. BONCHA Honey Tea Cool and Rolled BONCHA is a honey tea line that has been researched and developed by Uniben for many years with a modern and closed production line, approved by the City Health Department. Certificate of food safety and hygiene in Ho Chi Minh City. The rhythmic blend of whole green tea and 100% pure honey provides a refreshing drink for the digestive system, supporting the body’s immune system. The taste of sweet and sour tea is just right thanks to the addition of concentrated fruit juice ingredients, imported directly from Europe, as an interesting and new touch like never before so that every chaotic moment in life can be enjoyed. Enjoy the cool and refreshing honey tea. BONCHA Honey Tea – Cool and refreshing, the savior of a long tiring day Win from the breakthrough product idea, multi-flavor According to a study by ADM OutsideVoice – an independent research unit of ADM Group, in the future 77% of consumers tend to focus on health care. Therefore, beverages that successfully balance health concerns will have the upper hand in the market. And BONCHA Honey Tea was born as an innovative solution for the bottled tea industry, bringing more nutritional value, supporting digestion for the body. Tea is a drink imbued with Vietnamese cultural identity, popular in everyone’s daily life, from indoors to out on the street, from restaurants to luxury receptions. Tea is not only refreshing but also helps blood circulation, has the ability to fight cancer, detoxify, limit the need for snacks that cause weight gain… BONCHA Honey Tea – The first choice of modern youth The taste and culture of Vietnamese people have been refined and created by UNIBEN when combined with many unique ingredients of the East such as honey, lemon, kumquat and fruit juice imported from the West (Vietnamese). kumquat) to emphasize, add more interest to the taste. Try BONCHA Honey Tea with a refreshing lemon flavor rolled up with whole green tea, or “chill” with BONCHA Honey Tea with a mild aroma thanks to the signature kumquat peel essential oil combined with 100% pure honey. Blueberry Honey Tea with a sweet and sour taste from imported fruit juices, helps you to roll up refreshed, full of excitement. UNIBEN constantly strives to “refinish” product quality so that BONCHA is always suitable for all target audiences from children to young people and the elderly. Live young and full of excitement with BONCHA Honey Tea Trà Packaging is one of the most important elements to help a new brand make a strong impression and create sympathy with consumers. That is the “emotional” language to communicate with customers. Not ashamed to be called a “terrible rookie”, even in a fiercely competitive market, BONCHA’s very “Western” design taste is always outstanding, looks extremely modern, dynamic and eye-catching: Not only delicious but also attractive. still pleasing to the eye. BONCHA Honey Tea – An indispensable drink in every fun mọi BONCHA is a honey tea product crystallized from the quintessence of modern technology, creative flavors and the spirit of young people to dream big and never give up. BONCHA not only satisfies the true thirst, but in a way this brand also satisfies the “thirst of youth” who are always looking for innovation and new experiences in today’s dynamic and modern life. This is also the statement full of “personality” of the BONCHA Honey Tea brand – Cool and exciting. Uniben owns 2 largest and most modern food factories, with brands in the FMCG industry namely 3 Mien, Reeva, JOCO and BONCHA. In which, 3 Mien noodles is the leading brand chosen by Vietnamese consumers to buy continuously from 2015 to now with over 27.5% market share. Reeva is a high-class noodle and pho brand exported to more than 16 countries around the world. JOCO Juice and BONCHA Honey Tea are two innovative brands of delicious, vitamin-rich beverages that help strengthen resistance with natural ingredients.

Industry “commanders” in the US have voiced the warning of serious consequences caused by the global shortage of chips. Photo: AFP Semiconductor chip supplies have been in short supply for months and the situation shows no sign of abating, prompting insiders to visualize it into the chipageddon crisis. It is a combination of ‘microchip’ (semiconductor chip) and ‘armageddon’ (which excessively means war of destruction). Mr. Glenn O’Donnell, deputy research director at consulting firm Forrester believes that the thirst for semiconductor chips could last until 2023. “As demand will continue to increase while supply will remain limited, We expect this shortfall to continue into 2022 and into 2023, “commented Glenn O’Donnell on his blog. According to the expert’s argument, demand for computers – products using the most advanced chips – will slightly decrease next year but not by much, but data centers, where the machines are located. will be the chip-eaters next year. Mr. Glenn O’Donnell explained: “The deviceization of things is an irresistible trend, coupled with the continued growth of cloud computing and cryptocurrency mining, we see nothing but a boom. short-term explosion on chip demand “. Meanwhile, Mr. Patrick Armstrong, Information Technology Director of Plurimi Investment Managers Fund commented on CNBC that the global shortage of chips will last 18 months. “Not just the auto industry. It’s the phone. It’s also the IoE [một khái niệm kết nối rộng hơn Internet vạn vật (IoT), xoay quanh 4 yếu tố chính: Con người (People), sự vật (Things), dữ liệu (Data) và quá trình (Process)]. There are a lot more products that use chips now than before. “” All of them are connected to the internet, “said Patrick Armstrong. The auto industry has been most adversely affected by the global thirst for chips. Earlier this month, the world’s largest chip maker TSMC (Taiwan) said it could meet the chip demand of the auto industry next June. However, Mr. Armstrong said that this statement by TSMC is too ambitious. “If you listen to Ford, BMW, and Volkswagen, they all claim that there are bottlenecks in capacity and they can’t get the chips needed to build new cars,” Armstrong argued. Meanwhile, Gartner Consulting and Information Technology Research is more optimistic that chip shortages will last throughout 2021, affecting all chip lines and pushing chip prices higher. Gartner analyst Alan Priestley said that chip shortages could improve in some sectors / areas over the next six months, but could continue into 2022. “It (chip shortage – Editor)) will not last any longer, “said Alan Priestley. “The semiconductor industry is increasing capacity, but it still takes time,” he said. In fact, in March Intel announced plans to spend $ 20 billion on two new chip factories in the state of Arizona. The group also said it could build a factory in Europe if it could raise funds for public investment. “Those things will take two or three years before we start realizing their effect,” said Alan Priestley, who said that the investment plans could actually meet demand for semiconductors in future. Mr. Reinhard Ploss, CEO of chip maker Infineon (Germany) last week said that the semiconductor industry is in the region without privileges; at the same time warned to rebalance the demand and supply of semiconductors “obviously will take time”. “I think two years is too long, but we are sure that the current situation will extend into 2022,” said Ploss. “I think the additional capacity will be realized… Hopefully the situation will be more balanced in the next calendar year,” added the German CEO. Wenzhe Zhao, director of the global strategy and economics division at Credit Suisse, said that the shortage in chip supply led to speculation on chip-making hoarding and widening the gap. amid increasing chip demand and supply remains stagnant. According to Wenzhe Zhao, the new semiconductor manufacturing capacity will not be effective until 2022 or later. Wenzhe Zhao noted that there is little action he can do to address the shortage of semiconductors, aside from adjusting orders, production schedules and prices.

Semiconductor chips are an important component of modern electronics that can be found in thousands of products used every day, including cars, computers, smartphones and medical devices … These chips are the brains of all electronic devices, performing functions ranging from repetitive tasks like memory and microprocessors, to complex tasks like intelligence. artificial and high-end graphics. Semiconductor chips, which have a relatively low price, have suddenly become a scarce commodity. Jordan Wu, co-founder and CEO of Himax Technologies Co., told Bloomberg: “I’ve never seen anything like this in the past 20 years, since the company was founded. Every industry lacks chips ”. President Joe Biden with the chip model in a press conference at the White House, before signing an executive order to prevent a shortage of semiconductor supplies with the US economy, on 24/2. Photo: REUTERS The global chip crisis is believed to have been rooted in a miscalculation when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out last year. With the epidemic spreading from China to the globe, many companies predict that consumers will reduce the time spent using technology equipment. However, when “stuck” in the home, consumers begin to buy more technology devices: Add laptops so their children can learn from afar; buy a handheld game machine, an oil-free fryer, a blender … to make life less boring. There has been a comparison to call the Covid-19 epidemic “a prolonged Black Friday event”.
Meanwhile, car manufacturers were also affected by the pandemic. They were forced to shut down factories during a period of social isolation, when demand declined because customers were unable to visit stores. They ask suppliers to stop shipping components, including chips, which are increasingly essential to cars. By the end of last year, consumers started going out but restricted the use of public transport. Automakers reopened and turned to chipmakers like TSMC (Taiwan), Samsung (South Korea), and of course had to wait in line. Chip makers have been unable to accommodate soaring demand for their very loyal customers.
The shortages are aggravated this year, due to a series of disruptions. For example, the Japanese Renesas Electronics chip factory caught fire, the drought in the “country of the chip” Taiwan (China), and the cold spell in Texas (USA) caused the factories of Samsung, NXP Semiconductors and Infineon there to temporarily stopped working. “Everything right now is no different from hell,” said Frank McKay, CPO of Jabil – a company that buys billions of dollars of chips each year to assemble products for customers including Apple, Amazon, Cisco Systems and Tesla – to speak. Every day, Frank said, his company faced a shortage of about 100 components and had to negotiate as hard as possible to get it.
The difficulty of manufacturers
Limited supply of semiconductor chips is not a new issue, but what has happened is often related to specific chips. Consumers around the globe now compete fiercely for a cheaper chip made in old factories, when it is a fact that these factories are difficult to upgrade.
For example, the supply of integrated microchips for automotive systems is particularly in short supply as they are typically manufactured on 8-inch wide silicon (wafer) discs, instead of more high-end 12-inch panels. But no company builds more production lines because they are not profitable. Sumco Corp – one of the leading wafer manufacturers, has reported production capacity of an 8-inch equipment line to be around 5,000 panels a month by 2020 – less than in 2017. The purchase of new equipment and Starting with lower productivity means producers’ costs go up.
Meanwhile, the US, Japan and Germany – the world’s largest car makers – are making moves to put pressure on major chipmakers in Asia, forcing them to prioritize chip lines. In-car use up above the needs of other customers, which include smartphone and computer makers. The governments of these three countries fear that the car industry will slow down, or even cut production due to lack of chips, threatening domestic jobs and economic recovery after the pandemic. However, according to insiders, the political pressure to force chipmakers to prioritize demand from carmakers only exacerbates the realities of the supply chain.
“We have to renegotiate with a number of customers and at the same time have to respond to requests from the government to prioritize the production of chips used in the car manufacturing industry, which plays an important role. “This is in contrast to before, when chip manufacturing on a first come first served basis”, said Mark Liu – Chairman of TSMC.
Just a bubble?
The technology war between the US and China, which took place before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, is also believed to have had negative effects on the supply chain. As Washington imposed restrictions on China’s Huawei Group’s access to key US technologies, it increased stockpiling of components as much as possible. Many other Chinese companies, which fear they will fall into the same situation, do the same way Huawei has. The result has spiked demand for chips and components.
On April 12, Huawei directly blamed the United States for indirectly causing a global crisis, arguing that Washington’s sanctions on Chinese technology companies have caused love. “panic procurement” of components and chips, causing supply chain disruptions. “Apparently unreasonable US sanctions against Huawei and other Chinese companies have created a component shortage across the industry, and this could completely cause a crisis. global ”- said Eric Xu – Huawei’s rotating chairman.
However, companies are still uncertain about the current “thirst” for chips. For them, great demand comes from a series of hedge orders, stockpiling efforts or even the determination to take market share from competitors, thereby creating the “semiconductor chip bubble” on market. TSMC President Liu acknowledged that most customers want to order more than twice as much as they need to minimize the risk of supply chain disruptions caused by geopolitical tensions.
“The current strong demand won’t last forever, because buyers won’t buy five phones or five cars at a time. I worry that there will be adjustments when one of the big players in the industry takes action, and orders will start to decline, ”a leader in the chip supply chain told Nikkei Asia. “I’ve never seen anything like this in the last 20 years since the company was founded. Every industry lacks chips.” – Co-Founder and CEO of Himax Technologies J ordan Wu

Long Dinh water reservoir has been completed but the water plant system is still in progress, making the islanders still “thirsty” for clean water.

Students in particular and people in general of Quan Lan pearl island, Van Don district, Quang Ninh province “thirst” for clean water.

Thousands of students lack clean water

Up to now, the domestic water source of the people of 2 communes Quan Lan, Minh Chau on Quan Lan island only depends on rain water and well water. In the face of saline intrusion, water resources in many villages of Quan Lan such as Tan Phong, Tan Lap, Yen Hai … are seriously polluted and polluted.

The situation of islanders who are “thirsty” for “hot” water is when the local smokeless industry has developed over the past decade. The tourist peak season is also the time when clean water is scarce. Many restaurants and hotels do not dare to welcome guests due to lack of water.

Mrs. Bui Thi Thi, Tan Phong village, Quan Lan commune shared, her family also has a well but cannot use it. She often has to buy clean water to use. Each block of water costs from 85 to 90 thousand VND depending on the time. Therefore, the monthly money for using clean water is several hundred to million dong. For many years, the clean water factory has not been put into use, people wish to use clean water.

Pham Thi Xuyen from Tan Phong village said that her family currently has 4 people. The house has dug wells for use but the water quality is poor. Family is only used to wash clothes, wash hands and feet. She has to buy water for cooking. Each month of saving use also takes about 5 blocks of water.

Out of 8 villages of Quan Lan commune, only 2 villages ensure clean water. Households use rainwater tanks or dig wells. But most of it is salty or polluted. Many households have wells that cannot be used for eating and drinking … Particularly, Tan Phong village has about 200 households, over 600 people, of which only about 60% of households have storage tanks. Most of them lack fresh water for daily use in the dry season.

It is worth mentioning, more than 1,000 students from 3 levels of education in Quan Lan Island often lack clean water to use. Especially, with preschool when children spend all day on school, water shortage is a problem that the school and locality have been concerned about for many years.

Since 2014, Van Don district has built and renovated Long Dinh water reservoir (Tan Lap village, Quan Lan commune), with a total investment of 109 billion VND, design capacity is about 1 million m3. By 2017, this reservoir has been completed and the main pipeline system across the sea and distribution pipelines to the central points have been completed.

However, the project of a water supply plant and a water distribution system serving the people and tourists on Minh Chau island, Quan Lan on the side of Tham Gia Trade Construction and Investment Joint Stock Company (Company Tham Gia) is not yet completed. Therefore, after 4 years of completing the reservoir, this project has not been able to supply clean water to the people of the island commune.

Mr. Luu Minh Duc – Chairman of Quan Lan Commune People’s Committee, said the lack of clean water for daily life makes all activities of the people limited. At present, Long Dinh reservoir invested by the district has been completed and handed over to Yen Lap Irrigation One Member Limited Company for management.

With the water supply plant project and the clean water distribution system, there are still problems related to the approval of the factory on the location of the land under the management and exploitation of Viglacera Van Hai Company (under Viglacera Corporation, Ministry of Industry and Trade). Build).

Slow because of “overlapping” with Viglacera Van Hai Company

According to the research, the project of a water supply plant and a water distribution system serving the people and tourists on Minh Chau and Quan Lan islands was decided by the People’s Committee of Quang Ninh province to invest in 2017 with the scale of capacity. 4,000m3 / day and night.

The project has a total area of ​​over 28 thousand m2, total investment of 30 billion VND includes: Water supply plant located in Nam Hai village, Minh Chau commune; the water supply pipeline is located in Minh Chau and Quan Lan communes. Up to now, the cluster of key projects, siphons and irrigation water supply systems have been completed. Particularly, the domestic water supply system is in progress.

According to the People’s Committee of Van Don district, the domestic water supply project invested by Tham Gia Company has completed the installation of a water pipeline from the water supply plant to Minh Chau and Quan Lan communes. The company has signed a contract to buy and import all synchronous equipment of the factory together with the equipment installation. However, Tham Gia Company has not been able to build water supply plant items because the plant is located within the boundary of the mineral exploitation license of Viglacera Van Hai Company.

Facing the above situation, on October 1, 2020, the People’s Committee of Quang Ninh province reviewed the report of the General Department of Geology and Minerals of Vietnam – Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment on the closed area of ​​the mine. Return a part of the Van Hai sand mining area of ​​Viglacera Van Hai Company, including the construction of the water plant mentioned above.

On March 18, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment issued Decision No. 464 / QD-BTNMT approving the mine closure project. Return a part of the white sand mining area at Van Hai sand mine of Viglacera Van Hai Company.

Parallel to the proposal to close a part of the area for the implementation of the water supply plant, the Management Board of Van Don Economic Zone has worked with the investor, Tham Gia Company, to focus on resources for construction. so that June 2021 can put the factory into operation.

Mr. Tham Hong Son, director of Tham Gia Company, said that the water treatment plant project has just been “untied”. The company will execute the rest of the work. By the system, synchronous equipment has been made waiting only when the company is present to install it. Regarding the project progress, Mr. Son affirmed that by June, the factory will be put into operation to serve the people on the island.

Some recent literary fiction has been loved by readers.

However, it is not difficult to see that most of these literary works in Vietnam are foreign, such as Twenty thousand miles below the sea floor by Jules Verne writer; Ghost ship island, Fishman by Aleksander Romanovich Belyaev; People from Mars by Andy Weir; The Three Bodies by Luu Tu Han; Red rose by Pierce Brown … Vietnamese readers are therefore “thirsty” for literary fiction works composed by their own writers.

Not leaving behind as well as satisfying the expectations of the readers, in the past few years and now, Vietnamese literature has attracted the attention of fiction works. Writer Le Math has a book To the strange solar system, Through each page of the book, you can read with 5 teenagers in 5 continents with superior intelligence traveling to the end of the immense and deep space in the solar systems. From the earth, the stork spaceship brings 5 ​​teenagers soaring to meet many strange human species. There is a planet where humans have only one eye, one nostril, one ear growing on top of the head and can hear in four directions. They did not walk on both feet on the ground, but flew with a small cloud under their feet. 90 days of traveling through space, 5 teenagers return to their beloved earth. Amazingly, time on earth has passed 90 years.

Writer Nguyen Nhat Anh has a set of books The story of Lang Biang. The book series is a story about the interesting adventures of two main characters Nguyen and Kăply getting lost in the wizarding land of Lang Biang, coincidentally becoming two “Temple Warrior” with the task of destroying the Darkness faction. The series attracts readers because of its fast pace like an action movie, plus inherent witty and humorous details, especially the end is always beautiful and kind. Meanwhile, writer Truong Thanh Thuy has 2030 – fiction book is a special bond between vampires and wolves that have never been exploited in literature. In this book, by the method of metaphor, the author refers to the group of people who “sell their souls to the devil” to remind us of their greed, selfishness, and a deluded self. will bring unpredictable consequences.

Not long ago, volume 1 works of fiction Forest Devil Ruins by Nam Thanh and painter Nguyen Thanh Phong (drawing) were “out of stock” right after debut. Forest Devil Ruins describes the world in the 23rd century. There, the ruins of the second Chernobyl phastnoori nuclear power plant, leading to serious consequences for the earth. A masked assassin also appears with bear-deer crossbreeds creating chaos. According to the story line, the reader gradually approaches a world with Temno County, the life-manipulating matter of all things and the mind-manipulating technology called Aftermath and the wild species gradually gain intelligence. intelligence like human. From here on, a vast world full of tense upheaval opens up, revealing the plot to dominate the world of an “immortal” villain …

Many people expect that, along with the development of science, fiction will be an open sky, prompting writers to assert themselves and bring readers more unique works.

After sunset in Jaffna, Anthony Vigrado dived into the waters of Palk Bay to catch sea cucumbers – a prickly skin creature that has grown in value and has been his main source of income for the past 12 years.

But after 10 hours of searching, what he got is a fraction of what he used to be. The reason is that sea cucumbers have been extensively exploited in the northern coasts of Sri Lanka and southern India.

Treasures of the sea

“Illegal fishermen are fishing illegally in the places where we often dive for sea cucumbers. We are losing income and a livelihood for them, ”said the 31-year-old fisherman.

Sea cucumbers are echinoderms with a soft, tubular body resembling a vegetable of the same name. Photo: Guardian.

Sea cucumbers are echinoderms with a soft, tubular body resembling a vegetable of the same name. They are an unusual animal but play an important role in the marine ecosystem. When they eat debris in sediments, they regenerate nutrients and excrete nitrogen, ammonia and calcium carbonate – components that make up coral reefs. Sea cucumber also helps slow ocean acidification due to human activity.

The demand for sea cucumbers is huge in China and Southeast Asian countries, where they are processed into delicious dishes and used in traditional remedies. Dried sea cucumber is called calche-de-mer or trepang. They are also considered by many, especially China, an aphrodisiac.

This has made the sea cucumber trade become “super profitable”. Therefore, this animal is in danger of extinction. In the 1980s, sea cucumber was priced below 70 USD / kg, now the price has increased to more than 270 USD / kg. The rare species cost up to nearly 3,500 USD / kg.

Over the years, sea cucumbers in Palk Bay and Mannar Bay are overfished. For the most expensive species, the number of individuals has dropped by more than 60% globally.

Fishermen harvested sea cucumbers caught on Mannar Bay. Photo: Guardian.

Now, this tiny tropical island has become a hotspot for smuggling and illegal sea cucumber fishing. Like Vigrado, more than 10,000 fishing families living along Sri Lanka’s north coast are anxious about their livelihoods.

Chamari Dissanayake, Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Sri Jayewardenepura University in Sri Lanka, said: “The number of sea cucumbers is plummeting due to overfishing. It affects the biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal fishermen who have long depended on this profession ”.

Vigrado said many illegal fishing boats damaged the facilities and equipment of local fishermen to catch sea cucumbers, causing some people to commit suicide because they could not pay the debt.

“They are grabbing everything”

AM Stanny Lambert, a 31-year-old fisherman from Vankalai in Mannar, said he was sad and angry at these crimes.

“It was unethical and we were stuck, because they were doing everything in front of us,” he said. Lambert and his father have been licensed to fish for 11 years and are the breadwinner of the family.

Most reported offenses take advantage of different regulations from neighboring countries. While Sri Lanka issued fishing permits and permits the export of sea cucumbers, India has completely banned all trade in these animals since 2001.

As a result, sea cucumbers are illegally caught in India and smuggled into Sri Lanka, where they are legally exported to Southeast Asia, or exported from India under fake labels.

Marine animal protection forces in Lakshadweep Islands, India seized 486 sea cucumbers died in March 2021. Photo: Lakshadweep Forest Management Board.

In August 2020, three men were caught smuggling nearly 1,000 kg of sea cucumber from Tamil Nadu in India to Sri Lanka via Mannar Bay. The Indian Coast Guard priced these sea cucumbers to nearly $ 700,000 in the international market. A similar case was reported in March 2021.

Teale Phelps Bondaroff, research director at OceansAsia, an organization that recently mapped sea cucumber arrests and seizures in the two countries, said: “If you have a legitimate market near a market, illegal, legal markets will become huge “fish wash” dens.

Exhausted

For many years, the Sri Lankan and Indian authorities have worked to combat this type of marine crime. But the growing number of arrests shows that illegal trade is spreading to areas that have never been affected before.

Nowadays, as the value of animals is increasing, exploitation is also becoming more common. Great demand for sea cucumbers has led to deadly violence in Mexico, related to yakuza criminal organizations in Japan, and smuggling between Tanzania and Zanzibar.

According to OceansAsia, the network of organized sea cucumber fishing and smuggling criminals is spreading from the Palk Bay and Mannar Bay into untapped areas of the Lakshadweep alliance, an archipelago off the west coast. South India.

Wild island of Suheli in Lakshadweep. Photo: Guardian.

In the largest recorded arrest, disclosure from local fishermen in February 2020 helped authorities find 1,716 sea cucumbers worth nearly $ 580,000 hidden in nearby coral reefs. Suheli deserted island.

“Resource depletion may be the main reason these people are looking for new locations. Lakshadweep is still pristine, which may be why merchants moved there, ”said Sajan John, head of the Marine Projects and Policy Management Unit at Wildlife Trust of India.

Realizing the seriousness of the crime of selling sea cucumbers, the local government reacted strongly. In February 2020, the world’s first sea cucumbers conservation area was established in Lakshadweep, anti-theft bases were established across the islands and Lakshadweep Sea cucumber Protection Task Force was established. established with the help of the Central Bureau of Investigation of India.

A batch of 416 dead sea cucumbers was seized on a deserted island off Perumal in Lakshadweep in March 2021. Photo: Lakshadweep Forest Management Board.

“The people of Lakshadweep understand the importance of sea cucumber because their livelihood depends on fishing. When sea cucumbers are affected, other fisheries are also affected, ”said Sivakumar Kuppusamy, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Wildlife.

But as the majority of illegally-caught and trafficked sea cucumbers continue to be smuggled into Sri Lanka, Kuppusamy agrees that while it is important to stop this illegal supply chain, educate the fighters. Illegally catching sea cucumbers correctly appreciates the importance of this animal is also important to protect them.

“We have to convince them of the role of sea cucumber in the ecosystem. Without sea cucumbers, they are jeopardizing the sea, ”he said. “That’s when they begin to realize that their livelihoods and their children’s futures will be affected.”

“Break that illegal supply chain and convince the fishermen – we have to do both. If not, this business will continue to grow ”.

The strange movement of a flying snake Some snakes are able to climb trees and “fly” from branch to branch with deliberate jumps. Scientists are investigating what makes them do that.