SHE BUYS SEA-SHELLS ON THE SEA SHORE...

When I was growing up in Australia, we caught our own bait for fishing.

Pippi-shells wiggled out of the beach, worms dug up from the mud, prawns drifting down the channel on the night tide. Dad used to shine a torch on the water and I would scoop them into a net. There used to be quite a few when I was eight. Less when I was twelve. And by the time I was a teenager, there were none at all.

This was our small contribution to the decimation of local sea-life. We didn’t know the prawns were drifting in to breed on the sand banks of Lake Macquarie where we lived, 90 miles north of Sydney.

Older and now well travelled, I’ve seen humans catching marine life-be it prawns, squid, sharks or tuna - all over the world. But what about the shells. Oh the shells!

Lined up on waterfront stalls -----helmet shells in Zanzibar, trochus shells in Tahiti, nautilus in Indonesia, turtle-shell jewellery in Sri Lanka, puffer-fish lamps in New Caledonia, corals in Sinai, cowries in Fiji, dried sea-horses in the Philippines.

The rape of the ocean’s marine life is out of control. The oil-leak in the Gulf of Mexico may kill a few hundred turtles, but it is nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the numbers of creatures being harvested in developing countries to satisfy Asian peccadilloes and tourist greed.

Tourist buying a shell from beach boys on Bali.

Woman tries on a turtle-shell bracelet in Seychelles.

Shells on a waterfront stall in Zanzibar

www.copix.co.uk

HAIL MR GOODFISH: World Ocean Network Campaign to save fish stocks

The protection of seafood species from over consumption must be a prime goal if ocean stocks are to last for future generations.

The Mr Goodfish campaign, launched on 18th March 2009 at Nausicaa Marine Centre in Boulogne, a coastal port in north-east France, aims to promote sustainability by encouraging better practices in every link of the seafood chain from fishermen and fishmongers, through restaurateurs and chefs to the consumer. That is from the professional, profiting from our abundant ocean-life, to "Joe Public" who is eating it.

Using the tag` Good for the Sea, good for You` the objective is to tap into public consciousness by showing how to make informed choices when buying, or ordering seafood. Several leading French chefs have committed to placing MrGoodfish stickers on their restaurant menus bearing the stark message: Si vous voulez continuer a manger du poisson, il faut bien choisir le bon poisson des aujourd`hui.

World Ocean Network members - Acquario di Genova in Italy and the Aquarium Finisterrae in Spain, are backing the initiative. With Nausicaa, they will post lists of sustainable species in their regions, adjusted according to the seasons, on thewww. MrGoodFish.com website.

`It has to work. The marine environment is under intense pressure which will only increase unless action is taken`says Stephane Henard, curator of Nausicaa which has welcomed more than 10 million visitors since opening in 1991.

I have seen a few aquariums on my travels and can say that Nausicaa, which is right in the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer, is top- notch. Its tropical lagoon, containing 400,000 litres of filtered seawater, kept at 24-26c is now the biggest indoor cultivated reef in the world, developed from 5,000 individual coral cuttings. And counting 3,500 fish from 100 different species. Other exhibitions such as Mediterranean sea-life and a Californian tank, with waving kelp and cruising leopard sharks, are equally fascinating.

50% of Nausicaa`s creatures were born in captivity. Others have travelled many miles, as juveniles, to Boulogne: barracuda from Rotterdam, a giant leopard moray, estimated by Stephane to be some 50 years old, a gift from London Zoo and a Napoleon fish from Hawaii. And I was intrigued to learn that unlike their aggressive Amazonian cousins, Nausicaa`s two large piranhas, from the Matto Gross, are toothless vegetarians.

The centre is designed so that one descends via staggered terraces into the heart of the ocean. And by viewing each tank of plants as well as animals, visitors will hopefully recognise the fragility of marine life, and commit to its preservation.

Tell a fishmonger if his fish are undersize. And that you don`t buy female crabs. Castigate Italian tourists who buy dried seahorse souvenirs, complain to supermarkets offering swordfish and tuna on their counters. The MrGoodfish campaign can work, but it needs your personal participation.

Nausicaa Centre National de la Mer Boulogne: open daily except 25th December & 10-28-2011.

Special daily activities and monthly exhibitions.

English audio-guides available.

Shop and bar/restaurant.

Accommodation on the seafront or the old hill town.

A recommended stop for families and car-drivers using the Eurotunnel, 20 minutes drive.