Response to “A Four-Century Retrospective of Marine Fauna and Fisheries Around New York City”
The article introduces and analyzes the situation of marine lives in New York Harbor during centuries. As a human who grows in inland area, I am not familiar with all the fish names that have been mentioned in the article, and I was quite surprised that the seafood industry was so well developed back in to 1800s. However, this kind of development is at a cost of decreasing population sizes and mean size of individuals (15), and millions of fishes and other ocean lives become dishes on the menu, the ecological balance is gradually losing. From my opinion, we can’t blame ourselves from eating fishes, however, the real problem here is how much we should consume them. People can make a fortune from selling seafood, but that might easily lead to over-hunting. So the crucial point here is to have no more than what we really need, and it’s really necessary to give special care to those species whose size have declined seriously.
Response to Ainu Success: the Political and Cultural Achievements of Japan’s Indigenous Minority
This article mainly talks about the status of Ainu people in their country Japan, and it focus on Ainu people’s movement and Japanese government responses in the decades. The part that most interests me is the attitude of Japanese government.They claimed and believed that they are no-minority country in 1986 (3), arguing that there were no “pure Ainu people” anymore, and they were “born almost as Japanese” (3). It seems hilarious to me because clearly, Japan wanted to get rid of this group of people with such quick and unprecise conclusion, and I wonder why. Later, with the visit of the chairwoman of the UNWGIP to Japan, the Japanese government “quickly recognize the Ainu as a ‘minority group’” (5). All those perfunctory attitude shows that the government was not dealing with the issue seriously, and they want to keep their nation entire one. My country has more than 50 minority groups, so I know it might be difficult for government to operate with too many different groups and there might be concerns. However, I don’t understand why can’t Japan accept one single other group, no to mention that this group has such huge historical values and deserve their own place in Japan.
Response to Wildlife Conservation Society
The seascape program offers great chances to establish contact with human and marine wildlife, enhance understanding and provide different kind of help for marine lives, which seems so nice to me that it allows us to contribute to the real issues in the oceans. And it gives me a basic idea what WCS does and how it does them.
