Monday , May 29 2023

The small nation of Palau forbids most sunscreens to rescue coral reefs



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Palau, a small island state on the Pacific island, prohibits the most common sunscreen varieties in order to preserve the country's sensitive environment, a dramatic step in helping the planet's turbulent coral reefs.

President Tommy Remengesau signed a new law last week that will prohibit "reactive toxic" sunscreens by 2020. All tourists traveling to Palau will confiscate their products, and shops should be banned from selling them or fined for the Associated Press.

Reef-safe sunscreen is still available.

Some scientists linked chemical substances to coral bad health in the sunscreen and pointed out that limited exposure could be toxic. The product can destroy tourists in the water and a spokesman for the Palau government says sunscreen gallons go daily to the oceans in popular snorkeling locations.

"If our most famous hiking trails start with four boats per hour, [and tourists] it must cover at least one ounce sunscreen, which is one gallon every three hours, "Olkeriil Kazuo told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation." Any day that can be three or five gallons of sunscreen in the ocean and Palau's famous diving sites, snorkeling, biodiversity and coral. "

Remengesau announced that he would support the law this year, saying that in the background of tourism, "millions of people have experienced Palau as we are" to recognize their hope with their unique and ancient culture, natural resources, and a clean natural environment. "

"As more and more people come from all over the world to see our own paradise with their own eyes, we can not leave our responsibility for these islands," he wrote in August. "In any case, we must fulfill our duty to familiarize international visitors with the fact that Palau has been intact for so long in a natural state for so long."

On an uninhabited cliff island at Koror, Palau, Jellyfish Lake in one of the 70 saltwater lakes

Benjamin Lowy with Getty Images

The Jellyfish Lake, located on the uninhabited rocky island of Koror, in Palau, is one of the saltwater lakes in the Pacific Ocean 70, once connected to the ocean, but is now cut off.

The country moved on to the proposal after another famous touristic point of view had shown signs of degeneration. Palau's famous jellyfish – the floating of floating creatures – was closed for more than a year after the disappearance of jellyfish.

Hawaii said at the beginning of the year that it would ban retailers from 2021 onwards to sell sunscreen products containing oxybenzone or octinoxate, although tourists could continue to allow their own products to be purchased or prescription-free sunscreen purchases. Lawmakers have produced similar studies that the sunscreen is damaging to its coral and found that more than 3,500 harmful components of the world's most popular sunscreen have been found.

Coral reefs have been decimated across the world in recent years, primarily because of climate change. The warming ocean temperature triggered a number of massive bleaching events that left the deaths or dying of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and researchers warned alarm bells about the future of such structures, saying they could disappear by 2040 at the latest.

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