Background
Many "green"products claimed in the market nowadays which customers are sometimes confused by their claims and mistrust about their validity. "Trustmarks help ensure companies follow best practices by setting clear and transparent standards."(By GreenBiz Staff) 1. Ecological label helps consumers to identify products which are more environmentally preferable than other similar products with the same functions in the markets.
Due to the overfishing in recent years, our oceans are under more pressure than before. In order to tackle the issue of seafood sustainability, an organization is funded. Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an independent non-profit organization with an ecological label and fishery certification programme. It aims to contribute to the health of the world’s oceans by recognizing and rewarding sustainable fishing practices. They want to influence the choices people make when buying seafood, and work with our partners to transform the seafood marke
t to a sustainable basis.
The MSC runs an exciting and ambitious program, working with partners to transform the world's seafood markets and promote sustainable fishing practices. It collaborates with fisher, retailers, processors, consumer and others to drive them to sustainable behavior. It never compromise on the environmental standard we set, or on our independence.
Website:http://www.msc.org/
- Our Video to promote "MSC"
Hong Kong Culture
Hong Kong is a small city but provide a large variety of food and given the reputable praise of “Gourmet paradise” and “World’s fair of food”. Food holds an important place in Hong Kong. As Hong Kong located near the coast, seafood is especially famous in Hong Kong. People always heard Chinese saying that fish and meat is the essential dish (in Chinese有魚有肉) as it indicated a symbol of abundance and prosperity Therefore, people will eat a lot of seafood in Chinese traditional festival.
Source: http://www.discoverhongkong.com/tc/dining/seafood.html (Hong Kong Tourism Board website)
Protection against overfishing in H.K.
In Hong Kong, the use of explosive, toxic substances, electricity, dredging and suction devices for the purpose of fishing are detrimental to fisheries and the marine ecosystem and are prohibited under the Fisheries Protection Ordinance.2
Public Awareness
Altho
ugh there is a Ordinance to protect the marine, most people are not aware the problem of overfishing, they do not know the consequences and mainly concern about the quality of seafood. A label which related about seafood is used under the accredited fish farm scheme carry out by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department in 20053. It is a label to ensure the quality of locally cultured fish in order to regain consumer confidence.
In the 1970s, Hong Kong's co
mmercial fishery reach the peak, Hong Kong waters were incredibly rich just decades ago with manta rays, hammerhead sharks, giant grouper etc. Due to overfishing, the fishery in Hong Kong declined. The WWF in Hong Kong launched several campaigns to promote marine protection, for instance, Save our Seas Campaign in 2005 and also Bluefin Tuna in Crisis. Unfortunately, it cannot arouse the awareness of the public. 4
Rhetorical strategies and its effectiveness
When people enjoy and love eating seafood, at the same time, the number of marine products become extinction is increasing. It is due to the problem of overfishing.
“Telling and listening to stories…may be the most powerful means for relaying and retaining information, communicating and understanding important messages, and influencing cultural thought.”(By Kathleen Marvin) 5
Our story aimed at shocking people into actions and to persuade and motivate them to buy the products with Marine Stewardship Council labels. In some countries, “Overfishing has not only proved disastrous to fish stocks but also to the fishing communities relying on the harvest”6 . We show how people enjoy eating seafood at the beginning of the video, therefore to recall the audience’s happy memories of eating delicious seafood. Then, we reveal the fact of overfishing problem with the statement of “If we keep on overfishing, fisher will be unemployed by 2050.”7. This will threaten the audience as seafood will soon disappear unless urgent action is taken to make sure that the seafood is comes from a healthy population and harvested in a sustainable non-destructive manner. If the consumers buy seafood with conscience with the Marine Stewardship Council label, they can ensure the fisheries are following the principles of Marine Stewardship Council standards.
Most people in Hong Kong are educated and they are more and more concern about the environment, even some of the environmental protection actions are legislated by law. The Marine Stewardship Council label is the best and most recognizable eco label for marine products we currently have in the world. According to a survey conducted by WWF in 2005 “97% of Cantonese speakers said that they would stop consuming a species if they found out it was endangered.”8 If people know that the products with this label implying that the fishery is following the principles and have sustainable caught, their acceptance of this label will be much higher and as a result they will start to buy the products with this label. In order to enhance the awareness of overfishing problem in the world of the public, we think that with the use of celebrity to promote the MSC labels, it will catch the attention of the public.
Motivation & Altruism
Nowadays, overfishing is one of the hot topics in everywhere. People only satisfy their needs and put not much effort on protecting the environment, especially the ocean. Overfishing usually destroys not only the sea, but also marine ecosystems. ‘Life on earth is being destroyed at alarming rate, and evidence is mounting of impending disasters such ecological collapse and climate change that threaten as all’. 10 Therefore, we should spread the message that the importance of the altruism and how unselfish behavior of others.
In fact, technological communication is an effective way to convey the altruism messages over the world. In the video, it raises people awareness of protecting the sea as soon as possible. “Initial story must be emotionally moving enough to unleash the narrative impulse in others” (By Kathleen Marvin) . 11When people watch this video, they might feel guilty and sympathy if they keep on buying seafood which is came from overfishing. So, they might change their purchase behavior to buy the seafood with the MSC label to show supporting on this campaign.
The video can boost altruism and build up a global consciousness as it can make people to have sympathy and feel guilty with their selfish behavior. They will not only concern about self-benefit firstly, but also they may seem others as oneself and provide unselfish behavior to others. Indeed, it will have a global impact that people can act a coherent action to echo using the MSC logo to save the sea together. Therefore, this strategy can send the altruism message to the world and encourage people to contribute their effort to our world unselfishly.
Motivates are the reasons that before one take action towards an event.
There are mainly 3 reasons for Hong Kong people to purchase the products with the approval from the MSC.
First of all, it is out of self interest, the popularity of seafood in HK. As aforementioned, Hong Kong people love having seafood. It is a kind of culture and tradition in the festivals. As indicated in the Times magazine, if overfishing continue for 50 years, there will be no supplies of seafood. That means there would be no seafood for Hong Kong people to consume. In view of this, in order to save the sea and while the seafood, Hong Kong people are thus motivated to consume the products approved by MSC. It can extend the time for them to consume the seafood they love most.
Thank you all of you
Thank you again for the useful comments from Mgt3430 classmates and also Mgt2411. We found that it is enjoyable to read your comments, hope you do also when you are reading our blog. The comments are helpful. It makes our blog better. We have chosen the following topics to discuss further. Let’s GO and enjoy.
Some of you ask about which type of marine are going to be extincted. We are going to show some of them to you:
· Bombay duck(九肚魚)
· High-finned grouper(老鼠斑)
· Leopard coral trout(東星斑)
· Humphead wrasse(蘇眉)
· Abalone(鮑魚)
· Caviar (sturgeon) 魚子醬(鱘魚)
· Bluefin tuna(藍鰭吞拿魚)
All of the above we enjoy are going to be extincted. And if we keep ignoring it, the situation would become more serious
Promotion to restaurant
We would promote to the shops and restaurants which have a lot of benefits on selling MSC products. Nowadays, more seafood buyers in
How the label will be shown? & Will seafood with MSC be more expensive than those without?
The MSC labels are used on packaging, price lists, menus, fish counters and materials highlighting seafood products. Here are the pictures which show the products with MSC labels, including fresh and canned seafood. The fish products with the MSC logo are not more expensive, incidentally, which means that it is just as economical to eat sustainable fish.
Should we organize a “NO Seafood day’?
As some people suggest,
However, the purpose of MSC is not to stop eating seafood and fishing, it aims to raise people attention on the ocean destroyed speedily because of OVERFISHING. Therefore, stop eating seafood is not the main idea of MSC, but promoting using products with MSC is that encouraging fishers correct their fishing methods and be more ethical. Also, this logo aims to increase people sense of protecting the sea. For the long term, the MSC mainly convey message that all people should take responsibility to protect the ocean. So people will act automatically to echo the activity better than punish them or totally change their local culture. The first thing let people echo the logo successful; people understand the overfishing is the one of serious problem to destroy the sea. If people deeply understand the hidden threat, they will try their best to protect the ocean. Therefore, the ocean will be protected, people continue to enjoy the seafood with correct fishing and fishers keep earning money. Eventually, it makes win-win situation.
REFERENCES
1GreenBiz Staff(2009), GreenBiz.com, http://greenercomputing.com
2 The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. Fisheries Protection Ordinance, http://www.afcd.gov.hk/english/fisheries/fish_cap/fish_cap_fpo/fish_cap_fpo.html
3 The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. Accredited Fish Farm Scheme
http://www.hkaffs.org/en/background.html
4 WWF Hong Kong, Save Our Seas Campaign, http://www.wwf.org.hk/eng/conservation/marine/?source=fp-leftmenu
5 Kathleen Marvin (2006). Business Narration. JFK University
6 Darrell Tan. 2009. Over Fishing. http://geog-ace.blogspot.com/2009/06/over-fishing.html
7 Monica Fong. 2006. General Education, http://ls.hket.com/hk/liberalStudiesTopicsAction.do?action=listnewscornerdetail&id=ff8080810e799f03010f603c6cdb00d7
8 WWF Hong Kong, Seafood Choice Initiative, http://www.wwf.org.hk/eng/conservation/seafood/bluefintuna/index.php
9 ‘Altruism-what is it?’ Retrieved from http:// www.altruism .org/about/altruism/
10 ‘Altruism-what is it?’ Retrieved from http:// www.altruism .org/about/altruism/
11 Kathleen Marvin (2006). Business Narration. JFK University
Good!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your video! It is meaningful, funny and motivating!
Of course, I would say some improvement that I think the video can be better. I think showing actual videos of the ocean now (e.g. decreasing number of corals in the sea) is more convicing. And may be you should explain a little bit on why your product would help. Becuase this label is unfamiliar to me as a Hong Kong citizen.
To conclude your video, I think it is effective and it really brings our awareness over-exploiting of marine resources.
In your blog, you mention about Hong Kong culture and how you communicate your idea in the video.
After reading your blog and video, "law restriction has been applied to fishing, why should we buy MSC product?" and "Which type of marine animals are going to be extincted?"
What can MSC do beside the effect of law? In my view, I think law is more effective on restriction on the overfishing problem.
Knowing when would extinction occur is just similiar to when is the doomsday. I think you should suggest some marine animals which are in high risk of extinction(e.g. Humpback grouper), so that besides buying MSC products, we can also do other actions to help the marine environment.
Also, beside having this video shown to the public, I would like to know what other thing would MSC do?(holding some activities, posting posters in seafood restaurant, discuss with fishers, etc.)
What I think MSC should do now is to discuss with restaurants and fishers in Hong Kong. Resturants who are willing to coporate or buy fish from coporative fishers can post the label of MSC, showing that they also care the marine environment. And public are encouraged to consume in those restaurants. Also, I would suggest you to show some MSC approved products in both your blog and products for better recognition.
Lastly, thanks for your blog and video, I really love them!
Hi, Laughing, your blog and video are good.
ReplyDeleteYour video is clear and the music, pictures as well as words are very match. It is easy for people to get your message.
But, as 3430.Korver mentioned, you may have some improvements. For example, you may show the rapidly decreasing numbers of marine animals, which types of marine animals are facing the great challenge and etc. So, readers can have more information about the marine environment and know how serious this issue at this moment.
For your blog, I think you should mention more about the label, such as what standard that MSC is now using? How they determine which fishers, retailers, or processors are worthy to the label? This information will help readers to understand more about MSC as well as MSC label, and be more willing to accept to buy products with such label.
Besides, I would like to know that how the label will be shown. It is simple for the restaurants to use the label, may be stick on the menu or show on the front door. But, then, how the label will show to the public as a fisher gets the label? I think it is impossible to have the label on the products, like fish, right? Since fisher is the important one on preventing overfishing, I think it is important for fisher to have such label. Yet, how to let the public know about it? It is a main issue.
Once again, thank you for your blog and video, they are nice ~!
Thank you for your sharing. It also raises my awareness of over-fishing. And the introduction of MSC is useful. Its campaign is meaningful that promotes the sustainability of fishing behavior. Also your video gives me a visual idea that I should not hesitate, I need to take actions to save our world.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your blog can be more comprehensive in giving statistics on the types of seafood going to be extinct. And is the world situation similar to HK? And how can we buy the MSC products? Are they available in HK market?As suggested by 3430_hogan, it is helpful for us, consumer to know the standard that MSC is now using as I am sure MSC is not the only organization protect over-fishing.
And in fact, HK fishes are mostly imported from China, yet China has already established the suspension of fishing several months every year since 1995, is this policy effective? What about other countries? So far how do they contribute in saving our world regarding over-fishing?
Thanks for reading my comments.
Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYour video is clear represented the main idea you want to express. You can extract the important point. It is great!
I have some questions on the points you have mentioned. The fishers are the main group of people involved in the issue. There is a conflict between over-fishing and fishers. In order to have a living, the fishers may not will to cooperate with MSC because of lower the profit. It is a question that how to sustain the living of fishers by fishing and protecting the ocean?
Furthermore, I think it is a knotty problem that in some events like wedding, some older generation insist having a shark fin as one of the dishes. Therefore, it is important to let people realize the seriousness of the ocean problem nowadays. As Korver mentioned in the comment, law is one way. However, it is a short term solution. For long term, it is important to educate people to aware of the ocean. For example, people are more aware of the ocean now. Some people like to have other dishes instead of seafood. Moreover, by educating, people are aware of the environmental protection of ocean.
Apart from over-fishing, I think one of the extinction of fish is the polluted ocean. Therefore, it is also important to take this problem as consideration. If the food chain is not balance, there are many effects. Therefore, for a better live, we should protect our ocean.
Thanks!=)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your sharing. It really reminds me of “Overfishing” this topic taught in secondary school. Actually, I was a science student who had learnt biology for 4 years. Overfishing is one of the great topics in ecology.
ReplyDeleteI highly appreciate you have related overfishing to our daily life and our Chinese traditional custom. It is vivid and easily understandable. So, once you introduce the concept of overfishing in your video, we can know at once how our eating habits affect fishery as well as ecology. Since we are found guilty in overfishing, it seems that we should also take responsibilities to address the problem. It’s really a smart strategy!
However, it seems that you’ve rarely mentioned how Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) can help reduce the overfishing problem such as the workings behind. It is very important! If you wanna people support the campaign against overfishing, they would like to know how their marginal effort can help improve the situation. It’s just like you buy a flag in a flag-selling day, but you don’t know where the money would go and how the money would be used. We shouldn’t encourage blindly donation or support!
Actually, overfishing involves a hot topic of destroying the food chain in marine life. I think it should also be included in your blog. The concept is as follows:
Food chain: Plant (coral)-> small fish -> big fish (Highest level)
As shown on the above, small fish eats coral which is in turn eaten by big fish. The higher level in the food chain depends on the lower level; therefore, any disruption of a point in a food chain would totally destroy the upper level and thus possibly cause an extinction of a particular marine life (, not only fish.) That’s why there’s a strongly appeal on preventing overfishing.
I do agree with you overfishing is really a terrible thing! Almost every fishing area has its fishing ban period in order to ensure the fish can reproduce. However, some selfish fishermen only have an eye for their own economic benefit and catch the “pregnant” fish against rules! So I think while promoting seafood with “Marine Stewardship Council”, related organizations should also educate the fishermen themselves and raise their awareness!
ReplyDeleteBut I have a question that is seafood with this “Marine Stewardship Council” more expensive than those without? As you know, HK people concern so much about the cost; if not, there’s really no reason for refusing to buy seafood with this label! But… how many local sellers of seafood use this label? I raise this concern because I can hardly see this label for the seafood sold either in parknshop or local food market. After you shock them into action successfully, how can they find seafood with this label in Hong Kong?
Your blog is not only vivid but also convincing. You use facts and some statistics to support your viewpoint, which is quite good. And you may also introduce the working of this label certification process.
And I also enjoy your video! It’s attractive and conveys your information effectively!
Thanks again for sharing!
Enjoy your reading and video! They are both attractive and meaningful! Thanks for reminding me about overfishing.
ReplyDeleteAs population grows at a fast rate, demand of food rises correspondingly. Also, as the living standard increases, the demand for high quality food including fish rises. This attracts many fishers to catch as much as they can for making business. It is a simple business model. However, it lacks of social responsibility which hurts our environment. Thus, one month of suspension of fishing is set for protecting the growth of fish.
I appreciate of your effort putting into your video and the blog. I learn more about protecting our ocean before it is too late to save. Also, you have demonstrated a good explanation on Hong Kong culture which may intervene the protection from overfishing. However, from my point of view, you can tell us more about different cultures apart from Hong Kong for comparison. For example, as you mentioned Hong Kong is Food paradise, different types of cuisine can be found here such as Japanese sashimi. As Hong Kong people love sashimi very much, this makes the demand of Salmon booms up. At the same time, this causes Salmon being overfishing. According to some research, the supply may not be able to provide for all the demand which will cause distinction in one day.
I think you can quote some more news to evident your saying. As previous commenters mentioned, if possible, provide us some statistics. It would be much persuasive.
Thank you for sharing. Your video is interesting colorful.
ReplyDeleteOverfishing is one of the serious problem in the world. It is different from the others environmental protection problem because it is affect the human being more directly. As many of people eat fish in their daily meal, if there are no more fish, the people will be lack of nutrition or even die from starvation.
Before I read this blog, I do not know what it is or even I don't heard it before. Hence, the major problem of this label is the low awareness. When I read your blog, I have a question: What is the benefit when I buy the fish with MSC? Is it only to ensure the people can eat fish in the future? If it is, I think the power of the MSC will be weak because the people always will not care the long long future.
I think MSC can promote their e-label on quality of the fish with its label.It is because people care more what benefits are at this moment. Hence, the people will pay more attention on this label. And they will buy the products with this label more often.
thank for sharing
ReplyDeleteoverfishing is always being serious all over the world. In Japan ,many of the whales were killed by whalemen. Also the seal in greedland are facing a massacre every year.
Although many of the green organization and the goverment has require them to decrease the number of kills, it maybe too late. Actacully some of the marine animals has became extinct already. It is a sad story, ocean born human,But human kill ocean.
Not only the number of human killed become a sadness, but also the way they do. In youtube,you can be very easy to search how the people fishing. It is all blood, it is cruel.We should stand up for them right now.
2411 pasionlife
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
after reading your blog i start to think about our daliy meal and i found that we frequently eat seafood. especially when there was some celebreation like birthday celebration and festival celebration. Hong know people really eat too much seafood and hongkongers always intend to eat fresh fish, then the considerable dead fish always be abandoned.
Your blog explain the protection againest overfishing in hong kong shows that hong kong resident still not have enough sense of the danger of the sea because of overfishing. the envionment protection group can do more cooperation with the goverment like hold a day to be the day of no seafood. that can remind people the danger of the sea.
Added to that, your blog code some celeb's statment which is so convincing and made us pay more attention to the blog.
however, i think the information and your expression is not enough in the introduction and hong kong culture of overfishing.
First of all, I want to response to the comment made by Fa. Although the problems of whale-hunting and seal-killing are serious in some of the counties, it is better to make it clear that these two problems are not very relevant to overfishing. Actually, whales and seals are both mammals. Some of you may think, there are not many differences between overfishing and the issues of whales and seals. However, this is not the case.
ReplyDeleteThe issues of whales and seals are that, the hunting of the animals is not a must. We can actually ban the hunting actions. However, fish is the main food resource of human. Therefore, banning of fishing activities will be impossible as this cause huge effects to human’s living. Therefore, this makes the conservation of fish more difficult.
And for the blog, I know that besides MSC you mentioned, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department of Hong Kong (AFCD) also takes an active role in doing fishery conservation. AFCD sets up rules to control the fishery activity in HK. For example, it is responsible overlooking the fishing activities in the protected areas, such as the 4 Marine Parks in Hong Kong. In order to make sure the whole ecosystem in the protected areas will have the minimal destruction.
It also encourages the use of fish farm that grows the fish for eating. This can also reduce the effect of overfishing and at the same time make sure there are fish supply in Hong Kong.
Thanks for your sharing in this blog.
ReplyDeleteI do appreciate the effort that you all put on this blog. There are several points I would like to share with you. First, I do agree that the problem of flooding green products. I can notice that there are pools of products labeled green in our daily life. From household tools to cosmetic products, the producer always emphasize that they are using environmental friendly materials to produce long lasting and harmfulness products. However, there are only few regulation and supervision in those green products. That means, we only depends on producers’ self discipline. So, I really think that trustmarks can help both customers and producers. Ensure the security of products for customers and improve the positive brand name of products.
Besides, I like the entry which connects the relationship between Hong Kong culture and overfishing. The traditional Chinese culture can definitely affect the regional consumption. Thus, I think that brainstorm alternatives to solve this problem would become a new trend for environmental protection. For example: Using some vegetables and eggs to make substituted foods.
Thanks for reading it
Thank you for sharing! I think your choice of topic is very good! Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is a good ecological label to introduce to Hong Kong People. As you say that, Hong Kong People like to eat fish, but they do not concern the consequence of overfishing.
ReplyDeleteI like your video which can show he bad eating behavior of Hong Kong people and get them to reflect themselves. Hong Kong people like eating always damage the environment. They like to eat the fish which is expensive and rare. Especially, at weddings and celebrations, roupers and Shark fin Soup are at a status symbol served. Also, as the case in buffet, seafood also being the popular food to serve and after the dinner, they become the waste. According to the statics, Hong Kongers' huge appetite for seafood - 58kg per person a year compared with the global average of 16kg. So, I think to convict people against overfishing is quite difficult, as it is the traditional culture for Hong Kong people eating fish. To solve the problem, I think it takes a very long time to educate the people that how their eating behavior damage the environment. So, I think you guys are doing very right to start this hard task.
Also, I want to respond what 2411greentea said about a conflict between over-fishing and fishers. It is a very good point! Fishers will suffer in lower the profit. So, it is the role of government! Hong Kong Government must have a well fisheries management. The government needs to have adequate information about fishery resources. Then they need to introduce the licensing system, and setting the restriction about the fishing period and the species of fish to protect rare, vulnerable or valued species and habitats. At the same time, they need to help the fishers to maintain the living by financial support in short term and help them to change job by providing job training in other field. The government must do it before the situation become too serious, as Laughing mentioned that “if keep on overfishing, fisher will be unemployed by 2050.”
All in all, Laughing has the good start to promote anti- overfishing, keep it on!
The video is really appealing. I feel worried and regret after watching it.
ReplyDeleteWe should realize that there is a long way to go in promoting the Marine Stewardship Label in Hong Kong. For the video part, though English is one of the daily and official languages in Hong Kong, you should consider putting Chinese subtitles in the Video. Moreover, you may like a voice-over (in Cantonese or in English) as one of your rhetorical strategy is narrative (story-telling). This will make the receiver(s) more easy to get your message. Language, as a set of code for you and your audience to encode and decode your meaning respectively, should be considered. I think it is always important and fundamental in cross cultural communication.
In the end of the video, you may like to leave some contacts for your audience. A website to know more, name of partners (companies which sell MSC recognized products), so that consumers may know where to buy and where to know more. When you set them a goal of taking action, you should set them a SMART one (I know it is challenging because you don't have too much of time to spend).
"To take action" can be changed to "Act now" (time-bound). Buy product of MSC can be change to "Buy MSC products only" (specific and measurable: buying MSC products only or not has a clear cut. When people buy MSC products and non-MSC products, they are not protecting the ocean(s)). Adding the contacts will make the goal achievable (they know where to buy and where to find out more).
I really appreciate your effort of protecting the planet and mankind. I wish I can do such a meaningful coursework too. I will pay attention next time when I buy seafood.
Dear laughing
ReplyDeleteThanks for the new article, it helps me to learn and inspires me a lot.
However, I would want to know more about MSC. It would be nice for your blog to mention about the criteria of being a product labeled by MSC, and give some examples of these products, which is selling in Hong Kong, with photos.
For the rhetorical strategies part, storytelling is of course a powerful way to influence cultural thought. I would like to introduce some famous websites for you to promote it, such as, facebook, twitter and MySpace. As the use of internet is well developed in Hong Kong and most of Hong Kong people will participate in the virtual world every day, advertising online is very suitable for the promotion of MSC and it can gain the public awareness easily and effectively.
Lastly, the video is great and I really love, not just because of the pictures and music, but also the inspirable words. Nevertheless, it may be a little bit rough and I think you can add more detail about MSC in the video since you want to convince readers to buy the MSC labeled product. After I watch the video, I just don’t know much about MSC, you may add a short video clip about the job of MSC and it helps the video watcher to understand more about it.
Keep it on!
Liverpoolfans
Thanks for your sharing. I have never heard of MSC before. Your blog provided a good summary of the background of MSC.
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly, the video is being put in the very beginning of your blog. The video is absolutely fantastic because of the following reasons:
1) It is very touching. The music mixes with the words completely and undeniably. The video made me run into tears as it is really inspiring and provocative.
2) The English in the video is excellent. There are many rhythms in the video which are easy to remember and understand. The words are in stark contrast with each other.
3) The tone of the video. Each shift of photos in the video brings us to a deeper view.
From very happy to have seafood in the beginning, to pretty shocked in the middle and very urgent to take action in the end.
4) The video demonstrates a strong sense and originality of rhetorical strategy because it says if we continue to overfish, seafood may disappear in the future.
5) The video encourages people not to consume so many fishes and provide incentives for us to urge fishermen not overfish.
6) Motivation and inspiration are implicitly shown in the video so that viewers would receive the message down underneath.
Although it is of paramount importance to reduce the number of people who overfish, the living of fishermen in HK relies heavily on their results of fishing activities every day. Economically, their working hours as well as income would decrease if they are forced to reduce the number of fishing activity.
Subsidy provided by the government to the unemployed fishermen may be one of the solutions to tackle the problem. Overfishing can also be reduced if governments introduce tax for some of the high priced fishes and seafood. So, the number of people buying seafood will decrease and less fishes are demanded.
Similarly, the existing limitation for the number of sharks and whale killed yearly is a good way to deal with the problem of overfishing.
Education, as your blog mentioned, is another good way to solve the problem of overfishing. We can show the public the negative impact of overfishing by using photos in white and black color so as to make people concern about the potential danger of overfishing. These photos can also threaten people not to consume so much fishes. If they continue, no fish would be available for consumption in the future.
I have some suggestions for the betterment of your blog.
1) The ideas can be more organized by separating a long paragraph into short paragraphs.
2) The choice of words and grammar of some of the sentences in your blog can be modified into more clear and easy to understand phrases.
3) to include the possible economic reasons about the practicality of controlling overfishing in HK.
Overall, your blog is very good and once again, thank you the video because it is very touching.
Thank for your sharing. After reading your blogs, I think people eat seafood frequently. My mum always buys seafood as our dinner. Although seafood is very yummy, should we do something to protect the ocean?
ReplyDeleteHow to prevent over-fishing? Should we stop buying the fish? Or the government set up some policy to prevent over-fishing? There are lots of question on my mind. I think the most effective way for protecting our ocean is that the government should spend more time on the education. If the resident know that how danger if we over-fishing, they will protect our ocean together.
I agree some students’ idea for setting a day as a no seafood day. People can pay attention on how danger is our ocean. They think about the problem of over-fishing.
I like your blog. It is very meaningful. Great!
Thanks for your sharing. I really like your video. Your video is the most impressive one for me. Your repetition of the word “seafood” and your slogan make your main theme of the video clearer and easier to remember.
ReplyDeleteI like your blog so much from the beginning, it is because you guys write in simple English with good organization. Your blog is really reader-friendly.
However, there is something that I want to suggest here.
In the part of public awareness, you have said that WWF has launched many campaigns about overfishing. That means Hong Kong people are starting aware of the overfishing, right? So what is the role of the Marine Stewardship Council in Hong Kong? Actually, it is not a well-known organization in Hong Kong, so most of the events of promoting environmental friendly are held by WWF or other local organization. So what position do you guys want to put MSC in Hong Kong?
Also, in your rhetorical strategy, you mainly mentioned something about your video, so any other strategies that you are going to implement to promote the MSC? Or are there any ways or channels that you are going to choose to let people watch your video? Actually, I think only showing the video is not enough. MSC is a big topic if we further analyze. If we want people know more about it and take action, better and more comprehensive promotion is needed. For example, which group will you going to educate first? What ways will you use besides video? Like, cooperation with other student unions, etc.
Finally, altruism is not easy to promote. So I don’t really think that you can make people to be altruist just only by one video. Especially, HK people love seafood so much, are they really willing to scarify so easily and far sighted enough to protect the sea now?
The above is only my opinion. Anyways, you blog and video are cute. Thanks for giving us a nice place for sharing.
Thank you for you sharing.
ReplyDeleteI am in the other class but I think that your topic is also very interesting.
I am very touching by it because I like to dive.
It is so beautiful to see life in the ocean. I love it, love to be swimming. I think that sea is the "mother" of every human and animal being. So we gona to protect it. And one of this way is to save its life.
So thank for sharing about it phenomenon. I already knew it but I think that to remind is always a good way.
I was alos wondering if you know how many kilo of fish are use every mounths in HK. In France we it fish but not much as you do.
2050 is not so far so thank you for this post and I whope that people will take conscience of this terrible problem.
Thank you
Camille
I really love to read your blog, especially the colorful pictures and attractive videos. It tells me overfishing can lead to many serious consequences. Also, it helps to increase the awareness of over-fishing over the world. We should take concrete actions immediately. So, this blog can remind us this problem which is so meaningful.
ReplyDeleteIn your blog, you mentioned Hong Kong’s culture. People will eat a lot of seafood in Chinese traditional festival. Also, people always treat fishing as a health activity in Hong Kong. After reading the blog, I notice that this behavior affects fishery as well as ecology. I didn’t think that our habit will cause such a serious problem. From now on, I will pay attention to this.
It may be more convincing if you can add more recent news in your blog. As the problem is becoming serious, there should be some news indicating the consequences of overfishing. If people notice the bad effects, they will pay more attention on this problem.
From my point of view, law should be imposed to avoid over fishing from now on. People are selfish; it is difficult to convince them not to eat fish. Law is the most effective way to protect our beautiful ocean.
Thank you for your sharing. =]
Your introduction on the problem of over-fishing is impressive. It enables readers involve in your experience which is helpful for us to understand, to feel your ideas and what is the problem of overfishing going on . Through knowing more, we may have a sense of involvement into your ideas. I appreciate your analysis on the Hong Kong culture over fishing. I do agree that Chinese people tend to believe that fish is part of the essential dish and it means prosperity. Even my family members do.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you make a really detail description on the overfishing issue, and as you mentioned on your blog that your aim is to shock people and to persuade and motivate them to buy the products with Marine Stewardship Council labels. However, I am sorry to tell you that I was not shocked by your blog, I think it is the result of lack of supporting evidence, if more real data are provided to prove the effects of overfishing, it can be quite more impressive.
Thank you for reading my comment.
Thank you for the sharing.
ReplyDeleteI must say , good gob guys ! You just made me want to stop eating seafood for awhile!! (even though i am a major fan of seafood)
The video which says overfishing will lead to extinct of the seafood and the fact that by 2050 fishermen are going to be umemployed is a very powerful fact to inspire people .
However i think there is still plenty of room to improve into a more comprehensive blog. For instance, you could talk more about the background of the label and even talk about the requirements to gain it. Furthermore, not only you can talk about the Hong Kong culture and its attitude towards the matter of expoliting resources in the ocean you can talk about the cultures of different countries and compare them with hong kong's as well. You can also suggest some ideas , for Cityu's student first and slowly expand to the public, of how to promote and raise the awareness towards this matter as well.
First of all, thanks for introducing us about the MSC. It’s my first time to hear about it as it is not really popular in Hong Kong. You guys have done a really good job in analyzing Hong Kong culture toward seafood.
ReplyDeleteSeafood in Hong Kong is treated as a luxury food which is still affordable for many people. “Fish and meat is the essential dish” is really point out the Chinese culture as it is really difficult to have meat or fish for dinner in the past. If they can afford to have this kind of big dinner, it means the families are really rich. Moreover, I think you can have a more deeply analysis on the customer behaviours of Chinese/Hong Kong people toward seafood. For example, when they will have it? And what kind of seafood they like most? I think it would be very interesting.
From your passage, I find that the government support is not enough. The protection of marine life is mainly supported by the NGO (Non-Government Organization) like WWF. It might be a good idea to show the figures to our government and persuade our government for the protection of marine life. Our government should pay more effort in doing it.
For your video, it makes a big contrast between the life and the food. By this association, people would think of the fish and other marine life when they are having seafood. By this, it might help to reduce the seafood consumption in Hong Kong.