Thursday, August 21, 2008

We love the earth group 3: NGO & initiatives

Knights of the Singapore Marine Roundtable



The Singapore Marine Roundtable (MRT) is made up of several individuals and organisations passionate about marine conservation. Imagine the King Arthur's Knight. Underwater World Singapore (UWS) is part of this honorable table and they are the main front for the MRT, imparting cruicial knowledge to the general public and tourist in order to convert them into reef conservation sympathetics; like King Arthur of the Knights of the Roundtable.

Apart from educational activities, UWS also recently lauched an annual competition titled Young Marine Biologists Award (*hint hint*). UWS wishes to promote awareness of the threats to the marine environment by engaging primary to tertiary levels in this competition.

Another NGO the Marine Conservation Group (MCG) also emphasizes upon the local spread of knowledge. Among other things they host public talks, slide-talks, publications and photo exhibitions. Apart from outreach MCG also calls out to the NEA to draw protected areas around the southern islands.

There appears to be a silent consensus around the table that saturation of public minds can bring about change to the futurescape of Singapore's coral reefs. And this might be the case. Apathy is brought about by sloth and ignorance. Bringing the experience from marine to terra surely will change the mindsets of such people. A good analogy of this attitude is the fight or flight behaviour. Visualize this, Ken walks into a bar and buys a beer. He is happily sipping his beer. He pays no attention to the world around him. Then somebody else in the bar decides he would like to emboss Ken's face in the counter. Ken would either fight or flight (run; in light of his lack of flight enabling appendages). Are you like Ken?



Are you in your comfortable stool staring into your beer mug? What would it take for you to get up and do something about the problem at hand? It is only through challenge that people stand up and do something. The Knights of the Singapore Marine Roundtable are taking the fight to the public through talks, and real-life, hands-on experience. So here's a challenge. You can be a Knight too. Take the initiative.

Pictures taken from www.theplatelady.com and stuffeducatedlatinoslike.wordpress.com

Jacque and Theophilus finished work at 2:58 PM

______________________________

the marine junkies
Jacque and Theophilus
18071990 / 28081990
NUS High School
NUS Marine Biology Labs

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Nudibranchs drawn by Prof. Chou
(hand drawn! wow!)
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