You know what makes me sad that people have such a misconstrued idea about sharks. They were one of the first creatures in the oceans but nowadays they are chopped up because of the sharkfin industry. You know that only 5 people die because of shark attacks each year compared to 10,000 people are killed by snakes. But media is focused on sharks and put them in a bad daylight and therefor giving people the justification to keep killing the “bad” shark. There are 350 different sharks species and only a few that might be a danger to people. But chances are very small to encounter those.

But why should we protect sharks? Sharks are predators of the ocean and are important in the foodchain. When we mess up the foodchain we ruin the eco balance. We will get plagues and other disasters which will affect us all.

Here some tips:
Do:
Tell your friends and family that sharks are cool creatures and that we should protect them before they become extinct

Don’t:
Sharks are wild animals, so take your precautions when entering into the ocean:
Don’t swim where fishermen are fishing
Don’t swim if you bleed
Most importantly: say no to sharkfinsoup since many sharks are killed just for their fins

Sharks are cool!
Sharklady will show you on July 30th at 21:30 International Channel Shanghai that swimming with sharks is the most amazing experience in life. We were at the Chang Feng Oceanworld Shanghai. Tune in!

We were invited by AISEC to be a judge for their competition with the top 10 high schools in Shanghai. It was a very interesting experience and the 10 presentations were very creative. Three were outstanding and we from Marinedream will look into these projects if we can integrate these into our projects.

1. Water battery: can you imagine a battery that works on water – what a great potential for boats to run on batteries instead of diesel. Shixi High School
2. Saving water connector: Every morning in the shower I let the water run for 15 seconds before I step underneath the shower coz it takes time for the water to heat up. This always irritate me and now I saw this great invention to keep the water hot in the pipes. Wusong High School
3. Recycling project: different bins for different waste and get it collected. We invite them to do our office building. (Shanghai Konjiang Senior High school)

After the presentations we had quite some requests from students to work with us over summer

The Beach Clean Up in The Netherlands, scheduled on 20th September 2009, will take place on the beach of Wassenaar and, if enough people sign up, also on the beaches of Katwijk and Scheveningen. The LEO-club from Den Haagis helping with the preparations. We’re hoping that around 100 students from Rotterdam will be helping us at 20th September.

On June 8th, the Rotterdam World Ocean Day took place at the Blijdorp Zoo. This event was organised by Vincent Kneefel and hosted by the Delft University of Technology and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Experts from all over the world discussed overfishing, illegal fishing and bycatch, Marine Protected Areas and other important issues. After a day with speakers like Fabien Cousteau, Dos Winkel, David Doubilet and of course Julie Adams, the message was clear: it’s time to take action now!

Back in Shanghai. This summer we have extra manpower in the office. Arakel from Holland and Guindra from Indonesia both joined Marinedream through AISEC. We are working together with Annie, Kiki, Shawn, the volunteers from SISU (30) and 3 young volunteers from different highschools, Leoclub and Greetje on the following projects:

Fish menu: we are describing 80 files – around 55 files are already reviewed by WWF Hong Kong and Montery Bay Aquarium. We have done first research of fish that is sold in the Shanghai fish market or in one of the 120 restaurants we have interviewed. Our challenge in this project is to get the suppliers of sustainable fish and restaurants/retail organized to start selling sustainable fish in Shanghai.

Freetrees: Updating the game and add in another game to learn Chinese/English.

Aqualife: Update content and finalize Dutch version. Redesign the look and feel. Add content management system.

Aqualife Xplore: beach cleanup in Holland on September 20