Nobel prizes and practical actions

Whatever the praise or criticism for Al Gore and his now famous powerpoint presentation that is the basis of the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, his award of a Nobel prize has propelled awareness of environmental issues to new heights. As a scientist, this is good news as it has the effect of applying a little warming to the debate: science thrives where debate is encouraged, and results and conclusions questioned. On the other hand, we all have the responsibility to think of practical actions and follow up. The ideal is to think of practical actions that generate positive benefits in other areas, such as providing real incomes for the poor. Such actions would then satisfy Bjorn Lomborg’s criticism that our primary focus should be to tackle pressing problems in society such as disease and malnutrition.

There are many great examples of how local actions can generate environmental benefits and generate wealth that can tackle other problems (I like the charcoal from leaves solution developed by ARTI in India that won an Ashden Award: http://www.ashdenawards.org/winners/arti). It was great to see another great idea come out last month: James Lovelock’s scheme for placing pipes in the ocean to generate more plankton growth and remove some CO2 from the atmosphere (see http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3001626.ece ). Whether it works as well as hoped is not the point; the bottom line is to create ideas that may work, test them properly and select and promote those that really do produce win-win benefits. That way society and the environment can both benefit.

Creative thinking

It’s been a while since there has been a chance to update the blog, and over that time there was something of a discussion in the letters page of the South China Morning Post responding to Eric Bohm of WWF who lamented the death of one of the sharks. The discussion focused on the efficacy of the park and the rights of indigenous fishers. I think that Hong Kong can move forward from here in a positive way if we recognize the opportunities brought to us all by events such as the arrival of the sharks. Instead of scare stories in the press, the banning of water sports and angry confrontations, we could have had an illuminating and engaging TV documentary on Hong Kong’s celebrity sharks. It could have served as a celebration of the partial success of Hong Kong’s Marine Parks programme (now over 11 years old) and it would have started the process of education about sharks, the need for marine parks and wider conservation issues. The word ‘celebration’ is very appropriate here: whilst much needs to be done, we should also take opportunities to congratulate the government and NGOs like WWF on what has been achieved so far in marine conservation. The sharks could have served as a living focal point of issues that need airing and discussion, not just in the letters page of an English language newspaper, but in the wider public arena. It may be too late to grab this opportunity, but let's all try to take advantage of the next one that comes along.

A sad ending

For those of you not in the know, one of the real sharks was trapped in a fisherman’s net in Hoi Ha Wan on August 30th. I read the news with great sadness as I feel I have almost formed a bond with these marvelous creatures by writing the tales of the celebrity sharks over the past few weeks. Of course fishermen catch and kill fish every day, however it doesn’t seem unreasonable to wish for a marine park to be a safe haven for marine life. Unfortunately in Hong Kong, even the tiny so-called marine protected area of the marine parks does not seem to be protected after all: fishermen still fish in the parks with nets and therefore the marine life cannot really flourish. Of course the fishermen claim it is their right as indigenous people to continue fishing and they have a point, but when interests such as these collide with the interests of the general public, negotiated solutions can be found. The question that needs to be asked here is why the government of Hong Kong has still not found a negotiated solution to this problem some ten years after the creation of the marine parks ordinance. At least we finally know the type of shark that has caused such disturbance, albeit to a small group of people. A blacktip reefshark is no man-eating monster endangering the public, particularly a juvenile of this size. Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park should have been the proud residence of a couple of real celebrity sharks, but with one down and little chance of the other surviving the ensnaring nets for much longer, it would seem that this is a forlorn hope.

The real reason the sharks went

What is the real reason for the departure of the celebrity sharks from the marine park? Following a tip off from a source in the Hoi Ha bay area, we paid a call to an investment manager in a dingy little office in Kowloon Bay. Speaking on terms of anonymity, the manager told us that one of his clients did indeed sign off on the name C. Shark and that this client had bought heavily into the Algal Boom hedge fund and had a large number of shares of the Prime Sub mortgage company. It seems that in recent weeks the Prime Sub company has been letting in water where it should have been liquidity, and that the total value of the two investments could not be accurately counted because the financial papers were wet. “To be honest, we’ve moved office a few times,” said the manager, “well, how would you like to be hunted by a couple of unhappy sharks?” On further prodding, the manager told us that the sharks had been aiming to cash in their portfolio for “a few million” so that they could buy a debenture for themselves at an international school. A spokesman at the school told us that it was school policy not to comment on individual cases.

sharks spotted

Sai Kung resident and part time paparazzi, Mr John Martin just sent us these pictures of the missing celebrity sharks at a quiet private pool. No wonder they couldn’t be seen in Hoi Ha Wan over the last few days! John noticed that the kids seemed unafraid so he approached the sharks for a little poolside chat about the price of fish, only to find himself escorted smartly away from the scene by a couple of large gentlemen wearing suits and sunglasses. Fortunately he had the camera hidden away by then.

Search goes on for missing sharks

In a mysterious development, the celebrity sharks have gone missing from Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park – apparently they haven’t been seen for days. Shark expert and Sai Kung’s very own action man, Charlie Frew has been helping to look for them, but to no avail. Some folks have started to gossip about kidnap, but without a ransom note that seems unlikely. We wonder if Charlie is looking in the wrong place for these sharks: perhaps he should be checking out the local rehab clinics and combing through police traffic records for dangerous marine creatures caught speeding whilst under the influence of alcohol.

Hoi Ha Wan Sharks: are they still scary?

Rumours were swirling around Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park yesterday as the sharks were put on the defensive over their scariness, or lack of it. It seems that some of the denizens of the park aren’t so scared of the sharks anymore. “It’s like, I’m not so scared as I was”, said one marine creature, “I mean like, these sharks, they’re more like Hello Kitty than sharks. And we all know Hello Kitty doesn’t have any teeth.” Some of the tougher sea urchins have taken to taunting the sharks as they swim by, and without even so much as a hint of bravado from the sharks, more urchins are joining in. Tuesday’s letter to the South China Morning Post calling for the Leisure and Cultural service Department to re-instate water sport courses during the school holidays hasn’t helped either as the underwater inhabitants of the marine park realize that the Hong Kong public is getting braver too. “The sharks need to improve their scary image” said one of the park’s image consultants, desperate to get a quote in just before handing out his business card to a couple of worried-looking sharks.

Nemo voted out in poll shocker

It was a tense evening, but once the votes were recounted it became clear that another celebrity marine creature was voted out of the Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park – Nemo the clownfish. (Perhaps his star has waned, or maybe it’s just that folks were fed up of queuing at Disneyland in the heat and wanted to make their point.) The sharks were reportedly disappointed as they’d really got into the idea of a Club Med trip but they were very happy overall that they remained loved by the Hong Kong people.

So now we’re casting about for other ideas to entice them out of Hoi Ha Wan for a little while. Obviously, being celebrity sharks they wouldn’t fall for the old trick of chumming, throwing dead fish, lots of blood etc in the water somewhere nearby; however we are thinking they may be enticed out if we drop a few Anya Hindmarch ‘I’m Not a Plastic Bag’ fashion accessories somewhere near the marine park boundary. Reportedly the sharks had been quietly asked a few weeks ago not to go to Central to pick up their Anya Hindmarch bags they’d pre-ordered because of the risk of frightening other folks in the queue, and they still haven’t received them by post.

a fair deal for the sharks

I had an irate phone call the other day from the HKSPCtC (Hong Kong Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Celebrities). They thought that voting the sharks out of the marine park could be viewed as cruelty to their clients. I asked them who had authorized them to represent the sharks (sharks aren’t known for picking up the phone and anyway the reception is lousy in Hoi Ha Wan). The agent assured me that the HKSPCtC had taken up the case after receiving a call from a certain Mr Spielberger. Anyway, we reached a compromise: we could vote the sharks out of the marine park provided they received tons more media attention, a free holiday (Club Med somewhere) and that they would be allowed to sneak back into Hoi Ha Wan two weeks later to show off their suntans.

Vote the sharks out of the marine park

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but if the sharks in Hoi Ha Wan are only minor celebrity sharks, then it should be easy enough to encourage them into appearing on a reality TV show. Then we can simply vote them out of the marine park! We'll also need volunteers to go and tell the sharks that they've been voted out...

Sharks continued

The sharks are still in Hoi Ha Wan Marine Park according to a small army of shark watchers that AFCD (the government department responsible for very scary shark stories) have employed. It's good to know that the park has enough fish to support a top predator or two, but I can't help wondering if these are ordinary reef sharks or a new species, one considerably more at home with newspapers, TV cameras and hordes of people trying to get a glimpse of them. Looking at the profile, these must be 'celebrity sharks'. They're probably waiting for a TV producer to come up with the right kind of deal: a spot on 'Big Brother' or 'Survivor' perhaps. Maybe it's not a bad idea as I'm sure it would be good for viewing figures.

In a separate drama at the Marine Life Centre yesterday, the very capable computer doctor Keith Chan and myself battled to save the life of the old bomb detector PC (actually, it was brand new in December 2006!). However we failed. The fresh sea air of Hoi Ha Wan may be good for us biological machines, but the salt spray is murder on electronics. Parts of the computer frame were a little rusty and we suspect that the motherboard may have been fatally corroded. We were considering a burial for the old computer at sea with full honours, however being a green organization we can't do that! Anyway, as those in HK may remember with pictures in the newspapers of the beach at Tai Long Wan covered in computer monitors, there is far too much electronics waste in the sea in this part of the world.

Sharks in Hoi Ha Wan

For those of you outside of Hong Kong, you may not know that two sharks have been sited at Hoi Ha Wan in the last few weeks. The media has gone bananas about them, and government has closed the bay to swimming, diving and other water sports. The sharks are around 1 meter (3 feet) in length and are thought to be juvenile black tip reef sharks.

Anyway we postponed today's dive to place the metal frame of the blast detector in its new location at the centre. Clement and Tasha sighted a shark as you can see, but didn't seem too worried about it.

Last week, we pulled up the metal frame that held the hydrophones in position under the Marine Life Centre. The frame was a little stuck in the thick oozy mud! Fortunately we had Hong to help out, and even though he's recovering from a little accident on his mountain bike, he was able to rig up a 1.5 tonne winch. Hong, Bruce, Linda and I dived down, took the weights off the corners of the frame, attached a chain and we winched it up easily. Towing the frame back to the pier broke a couple of welded joints, and as you can see there was a little bit of growth on the frame (see Linda and Bruce looking handy with scrapers)! The scraped-down frame is now back in UST where they'll fix it. Hopefully, we'll be able to get back to the centre next week so we can relocate the detector to its new site.