How China’s Missing Sea Cows Expose an Important Truth About Communism

The dugong, a species of manatee native to Asia and Africa, is now “functionally extinct” in the waters off Communist China, a rebuke of the myth that capitalist nations in general — and America in particular — present a mortal threat to the planet.A new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science documents the sad fate of these sea cows, which once filled the waters of the South China Sea and are said to have given rise to the legend of mermaids.The study found that “very few with extensive experience of Chinese coastal ecosystems have ever seen the species,” only three out of 788 in the past five years, “and there have been no confirmed records since 2008.”A coauthor of the study from the Zoological Society of London, Professor Samuel Turvey, called the disappearance “a devastating loss,” and said the dugong’s disappearance will “have a knock-on effect on ecosystem function.”Elsewhere, the New York Times reported, “There are still approximately 100,000 dugongs living in the waters off around 40 countries,” with the largest number in Australia, another western democracy.The Times continued, “Now the dugong may be gone from China’s coast forever, joining the Yangtze River dolphin and other species that have disappeared from the country’s rivers and seas.”While there are now too few wild dugongs to sustain the population, their American cousins, manatees, are what the scientific site Labroots describes as “a great conservation success story.”Today, those sea cows are “a common sight” in Florida, with a population over 8,000, up from only several hundred in 1967, as reported in 2014 by the Guardian, and an estimated 1,267 based on surveys by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1991.It’s a remarkable comeback for animals that were members of the freshman class under America’s Marine Mammal Protection and Endangered Species Acts, signed into law by President Nixon in 1972 and 1973.The Fish and Wildlife Service recognized the success of conservation efforts in 2016, upgrading the manatee’s status to merely “threatened” from “endangered.” Its southeast regional director, Cindy Dohner, said, “The manatee’s recovery is incredibly encouraging and a great testament to the conservation actions of many.”It’s the result of reforms such as speed limits for boats, designated safe areas and a concerted effort to preserve the habitat of the animals so they would be preserved for future generations to enjoy.In America, citizens are free to advocate for causes like environmental protection, to take legal action against polluters, and to petition the government for laws to advance their goals.Contrast this with Communist China. In 2014, the Third Pole, an information outlet for the Himalayan Watershed, wrote that “individual citizens cannot initiate public interest lawsuits” and lamented, “In China, how a law is enforced is much more important than how it looks on paper.”This has led to catastrophes on land as well as the sea. In 2014, a report by Beijing found that 20 percent of the nation’s farmland was polluted — and in all likelihood, they cooked those numbers to downplay the problem.As the Guardian reported, “China’s leading environmental watchdog has refused to disclose the results of a major national soil pollution study on grounds of state secrecy.”Things in the air are just as critical. Communist China ranks 11th on the United Nations list of most polluted countries, with 39.12 units of particle pollution per cubic meter of air, compared to America’s ranking of 86th with 9.04 units.In 2015, CNN reported, “In Baoding, China, the country’s most polluted city, the smog is thick enough to see. It can burn your eyes and it can leave an acrid taste in your mouth. This is the reality of daily life under the cloak of a toxic shroud.”Those on the environmentalist fringe who blame capitalism for the earth’s woes might take a moment to recognize these contrasts, and how our manatees thrive, while the dugong exists only on paper — which just happens to be the only place communism ever seems to work.

How China’s Missing Sea Cows Expose an Important Truth About Communism

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