(Adnkronos) – Recognizing dolphins with the same legal status as human beings, that is, as “legal persons”, in order to confer on them the same rights as humans and make their protection easier by guaranteeing their safety. This is the objective of the campaign launched by activists on Jeju Island, South Korea, to protect the most vulnerable cetaceans from boats and pollution. There are about 130 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins living in the waters around Jeju and many of them show increasingly dangerous scars caused by contact with abandoned fishing gear that traps and injures them or due to close encounters with boats or jet skis circulating around the island.
“The idea is that if an individual or a company threatens their livelihood, then we could act on behalf of the dolphins to sue them or take action in other ways,” Miyeon Kim, an activist with the NGO Marine Animal Research and Conservation (Marc), explained to the Guardian. “Several organizations working with dolphins have been pushing in this direction for two years now, but it is very complicated and we need to get the support of the Korean government and the citizens of Jeju,” she added.
To promote support, Kim explained that part of Marc’s strategy is to ‘personalize’ the dolphins so that locals can better identify with them. So much so that the group has produced a brochure with the name of each dolphin and the image of its dorsal fin. “It’s important for us to be able to identify individual dolphins so that we can document scientific data, but it’s also important for islanders. People need to really understand and relate to endangered species for this legal personality thing to work,” she added.
In April, a small but significant victory was achieved with the designation of a Marine Protected Area (MPA) on the western side of the island, with the specific task of protecting bottlenose dolphins. The rules governing the area include measures such as a ban on arbitrary building development, but they need to be further tightened, Kim says. “The law prohibits more than two pleasure boats from approaching within 100 meters of dolphins, but there are many different boats in that area, including fishing boats, and we can’t do anything about it at the moment,” she said.
