Greenpeace | Our relationship with nature

Settling into the restaurant. Over by the window? Charming wait staff. Comfortable? Open the menu.

zomato but anon restaurant because why?

Something a little bigger? Something a little endangered! ‘Grilled roughy – crumbed and grilled new zealand orange roughy fish fillets w cartarni chips, dressed salad + tartare sauce’. Delicious. (What’s a cartarni chip?) Although by any other name, slimehead for instance, maybe not so marketable?

http://www.letsjumptogether.com/2009/09/orange-roughy-fish/

Greenpeace points out orange roughy is known by quite a few other names:

Orange roughy. ‘Orange roughy’ (Hoplostethus atlanticus) is very sensitive to overfishing and has been overfished in the past. Environment groups advise against eating it but conscientious consumers can’t do the right thing because it goes by a number of names on restaurant menus, including ‘deep sea perch’ and ‘sea perch’.

You’re comfortable. Nice table with a pleasant vista. Jolly company. We’ve seen the roughy. Now, are you going to make a fuss? At least ASK about the roughy?!!

Um. No. WHY NOT?

The NZ Forest and Bird folk have put orange roughy on their ‘Worst choice’ list! It’s on the Seawatch avoid list! The UK Marine Conservation Society have a Goodfish Guide. Orange Roughy rates 5 – in the red zone. Avoid.

Don’t buy the roughy.

http://ocean.si.edu/ocean-news/rough-going-orange-roughy

Greenpeace are behind a new movement called ‘Label My Fish‘ which was due to report late last year. Greenpeace quotes this chef:

Gourmet Farmer, chef and former restaurant critic Matthew Evans said, “Imagine a menu that offered ‘mammal and root vegetable’, or ‘bird and green leaf’. It would be considered ridiculous. In Australia you can simply write ‘fish’ on a menu, without much of a problem.

This menu only features the one fish option. The menu hasn’t changed for a couple of years. Can it really be orange roughy? And what of others? We’ve all been to restaurants that celebrate the tuna. Could be yellow fin, could be blue fin. Why don’t we say anything about that? Is it just because it’s tasty?

http://darindines.com/2012/04/22/bluefin-tuna/

Tuna. Oh yeah. Mmmm mmmm mmmm …

https://www.mrag.co.uk/experience/implementation-iccat-regional-observer-programme-eastern-atlantic-and-mediterranean

How many scrumptious things can you do with this baby? Only, when they (WWF) say rare, they don’t just mean the cooking style.

http://www.foodjimoto.com/2011/10/sashimi-pacific-bluefin-tuna.html

You know they’re one of the last ones evs. Having written a book called Last Chance to Eat, I’ve got an interest in these matters. Just in case you’re interested in all things EKTEK, you might like to know I’m putting the three books together as one.

It will be called, of all things, EKTEK! It will be available on Amazon as an ebook and in print (730ish pages!) and it will be on Smashwords as well if you’ve got a Nook or something outlandish. The process has begun!

And now back to our menu. This restaurant smells fantastic. You are really hungry. So what are you doing? Did you point these delicacies out to your dining companions? Are you shifting uncomfortably in your seat?

Did you check out Sustainable Seafood to find an alternative?

For what it’s worth, I signed the pledge.

Greenpeace asked me to do the following to help. Maybe I can encourage you peeps to do the same? And next time we go to that restaurant, maybe we might just ask about the roughy.

Dear Victoria

Thanks for sending a message to the Federal Government urging a reform to Australia’s seafood labelling laws.

The more people that email the Federal Government today, the more likely we are to make a real difference. Can you help once more by bringing your friends and loved ones on board? Here’s how:

FORWARD the text below the dotted line to your friends by email

SHARE this link on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1sGlBg1

TWEET this: http://bit.ly/1QAjxDN

Ask your local seafood retailer to support clearer seafood labelling: http://bit.ly/1rtR7bP

Thanks for being part of this.

From everyone at Greenpeace Australia Pacific

===================

Tell the Australian Government: I want to know what seafood I am eating – and demand accurate labelling.

Australian seafood labelling laws are weak. They do not provide adequate information that tells consumers exactly what seafood they are purchasing.

We are calling on the Federal Government to develop new laws which require labelling of: what fish it is, where it was caught and how it was caught or farmed. Improved labelling laws will help consumers make informed choices about what seafood they eat and support sustainably caught fish from Australian fishers.

Take action: http://bit.ly/ZYGhoV

http://www.roughy-mara.net/facts/swimming-deep-down/orange-roughy/

What have Greenpeace and John Wolseley got in common? They’re both hanging around Fed Square in Melbourne, inside and out, trying to communicate their love of nature. Why?

Do they succeed? Can you share this love or just walk right past?

In their latest campaign, Greenpeace fight to protect the Great Barrier Reef. Last Thursday half a dozen young activists learned basic circus skills and swung themselves over the wall outside at Federation Square to dance/swim in projected animations to a jazzy whale sound track. They encouraged us to end the age of coal and ‘Take another look.’

It was sold as a ‘spectacular’ and Greenpeace fans were encouraged to book tickets. Spectacular in comparison to what? A basic banner unfurling? Or Legs on the Wall? Not fair? How many people did Greenpeace want at this event? There may have been a hundred and fifty – including innocent bystanders – entertained and encouraged by Rod Quantock. Is that enough to Save the Reef?

Half the reef has died in the last thirty years.

What can Greenpeace, anyone, do to Save the Reef? How can activists grab attention and create action? You could look at some pictures online? Are you moved? Will you act?

In contrast you could wander inside to the NGV at Fed Square and check out Heartlands and Headwaters. This show is supposedly laid out in the shape of a tree, with big works on the walls surrounding the trunk. Well, it’s a nice attempt but there’s no getting away from the white box and clean lines of an urban modern art gallery. (Next time think Herring Island or Heide, perhaps?)

The most dramatic piece for me was ‘Dystopia – the last wetland Gwydir 2184’. In this work, Wolseley attempts to show cotton farms engulfing nature.

You can see the dead pelican print (lower right) more closely below.

You can see Wolseley making this work here. And here are the cotton farms:

He is trying to get inside nature, show his connections, his own nature. Inside the rythyms and tensions, the cycles and evolution. He is certainly ambitious. The works around the walls are extensive, like this ‘From the edge of the great floodplain Garrangari and Garrangali’ in the Northern Territory.

Inside this luminous paper work are smaller collaged works

bringing such detail and evoking such life and depth that the piece seems to breathe.

Floodplain took three years to make. In the words on the wall Mr Wolesley describes learning from an elder, also artist, about the use of some of the plants and mentions ‘deep time’ as compared to shallow time where humans are present.

In ‘Natural History of Swamps III’, a heron examines CO2 at Loy Yang Power Station. Wolesley makes no demands on his audience. We are not expected to sign a petition. We are invited to wonder and perhaps to wander as in ‘Simpson Desert Sandunes moving across the Finke River’ in South Australia.

You can see the smaller more detailed collages inviting closer examination.Here you get a sense of the attempted tree down the middle of the space.

These are examples of the paper he rescued from the burnt mallee – some he’d left there for months, one is even marked by roots after a burial. These papers are bent and stiffened by the elements and marked by the charcoal fingers of the scrub. Some are trapped in perspex boxes and turned into precious objects by their presentation. Others, like these, fly loose across the walls like china ducks. Am I influenced by his art? His skill? His humanity? Does his love for Nature get beyond the paper?

If we know not Nature, then how can we protect it?

If we only see Nature writ large on the wall of a gallery, then how can we love it? Can our love be enough to save Nature?

How can we be moved to change?

Our relationship with nature

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Tag Archive | Greenpeace

Uh oh! There’s a vulnerable creature on the menu!

Heartlands, aim and reach …

One from the bees