A-kids-to-kids on-line dialogue about our planet's fish crisis

For this blog, two questions were asked of NYC youth and Indo-Pacific youth:

Question#1: ["perspective of ocean fishes"] What is happening to our "homes": where we live, find food, have babies? [fish biology, basic sustainability concepts of marine ecosystem, types of destructive local and commercial fishing practices, etc.]

Question#2: ["perspective of Indo-Pacific and NYC youth"] How is over-fishing and the near collapse of your community's coastal ocean fisheries affecting you, your family, and community? [fish protein in your diet, fisherfolk parents conflicted re: "dirty-fishing" practices, need to move to the mainland where there's more food and more economic opportunities, towns are dying, etc.]

Please tell us what you think !

November 27th, 2007

Beginning today, we are opening this blog for a two-month period to solicit readers’ comments about the Fishes Feed Us Project. Please help us evaluate and improve the Project by answering the following questions:

  • What ideas, if any, does the Fishes Feed Us Project inspire about replication in your local communities to help raise public awareness about our ocean crisis and to encourage the establishment of ecosystem-based management plans for marine fisheries?
  • What are your other impressions and feedback about the Project?

    • Click here to read the 10 monologues that were selected from the blog. They were recited by our NYC 4th and 5th graders during the “Fishes Feed Us” performance that took place on June 5, 2007 on the United Nations Plaza as part of the UN’s World Environment Day activities.

    Thank you ! Your help is much appreciated.

    Better late than never

    May 12th, 2007

    I am afraid about what’ll happen to our mother planet by the time we grow and what is left in store for the next generation. After 50 years people might go to the museums to see different specimens of fish instead of seeing it on the dining table.Did our parents grow up with such concerns? I don’t think so, or else we would not have reached such a dreadful stage. Had they known that so called man made developments would create such an ecological imbalance, then safety of the earth would have been the most important question. Under the garb of development the species called “humans” are eating this earth at a faster pace. Anyway, better late than never. The marine eco-system is as sensitive as a house of cards. This is an integrated problem and the cause of all the problems are well known to us. To solve the problems the most important thing is that we must generate awareness, specially amongst the elders. Then they will take good decisions to save the earth and thereby save the marine lives. This would need sacrifice and we all must be prepared to do that for the future.

    between life and death

    May 10th, 2007

    i feel paralyzed, i feel that i have lost my senses, something which has to deal with DEATH. I found myself swimming and living not in a sea anymore but in a canal of garbages, trashes and toxic materials. it’s so suffocating, so weakening and as i try to strive for life, i have already prepared myself that DEATH is just right behind me!

    see the difference

    May 10th, 2007

    compared to areas where there are few or no houses, the sea in areas where there are lots of houses usually turns black and produces a foul odor, something like a pool of garbages wherein trashes seem to pile up and get stocked. yet it continously happen due to undisciplined acts by citizens living near it.

    seasonal fishes

    May 10th, 2007

    “TAMBAN”, a type of fish dwelling near the shore, it was the fish that my mother was used to eat but that was before.now tamban is rarely sold in the market because it is already a seasonal type fish. fishes in our market were smaller compared to fishes that were sold previous years ago.

    “Mangrove Cutting”

    May 8th, 2007

    ” Mangrove cutting is a way to destroy the marine ecosystem. Doing so will not only cause death to aquatic lifeforms but also disturb the ecological balance in our environment. This activity also leads to hunger and poverty to many coastal communities.”

    “Garbage panic”

    May 8th, 2007

    ” On a hot summer morning, I travelled along way to explore the seas. I was shocked to reach a place with many garbages floating on the water. The Place smells bad, I also feel greasy and I can’t breathe there. “

    US Rivers

    May 8th, 2007

    Over the last 100 years, many of our rivers in the coastal United States were polluted due to industrialization.  Fish died off, and the water was no longer clean enough to swim in.  One example of this is the Hudson River in New York.  The first Europeans explored the Hudson 400 years ago, and ever since it has been a major trade route.  Major corporations dumped so much of their waste there that it was one of the most polluted waterways in the country.  There were court cases about the Hudson and the polluters had to help clean it up.  Many different groups worked to make it cleaner, and now we participate in a program called Trout in the Classroom.  We raise baby trout and then we release them back into the Hudson.  Would a program like this work where you live?

    Q#2: Mangroves Vanishing…

    May 4th, 2007

    Sadly, mangrove forests here in the Philippines have been lost as a result of reclamation of coastal areas for housing, industry, fishponds and harvesting of wood for charcoal. If this will continue, our already failing fisheries will suffer more losses. Marine habitats like coral reefs and seagrasses will also be affected.

    Q#1: “Garbage Everywhere!”

    May 3rd, 2007

    I am hungry for a couple of days now. I exerted all my effort to swim closer to those floating foods but to my dismay, those colorful floating foods that I can hardly bite made me feel sick. So I returned home to discuss with my Mother about what I saw. It turned out that the stuff I ate were plastics thrown to the seas by thoughtless humans! It didn’t taste good! Worse, it made me feel ill! I will never try eating those again…Ever!!