Paradise in Peril

Or What Happens When The 'Tragedy of the Commons' Hits the Sea

 Sunday was a real eye-opening experience for me.  I had been hearing about the Tragedy of the Commons for years, since high school at least, and I had learned in many college classes at my home uni about the terrible conditions of the world's fisheries.  But until Sunday I had never seen any evidence of it first-hand.  This is not to say that I didn't believe it, the numbers and figures I had learned about left little room for doubt.  But something can definitely be said for seeing something for oneself.  And that is just what happened on Sunday.  For the Fisheries Science class I am taking in Australia we went out on the school's research vessel and went trawling for prawn (shrimp).  To catch prawn, midwater trawling is performed which is a type of fishing that uses cylindrical nets that are pulled along on either side of the boat to catch the prawn that are in the water column.  Unfortunately this also leads to the catch of many other organisms in the water column including, but not limited to, sea turtles, sharks, squid, rays and sea snakes.  Nets are now required by law to have devices to reduce by-catch, but as we saw on Sunday, they don't do the job 100%.  In the four trawls that we did, we never saw more than 5 prawn at once, but did each time get buckets full of fish.  We also got a shark, a few sea snakes and a few squid.  And so I now understand how the seemingly unlimited supply of prawns must have enticed many a fisherman to go reap the bounty of the sea but has now left the prawn industry flailing in the water while wiping out numerous species of sea creatures.

Hailing a bus from the wrong side of the road



Aussie cookies AKA biscuits

Me with a wallaby at the Wildlife Park

Despite the many similarities between Oz and the U.S. and despite the fact that I spend most of my time just feeling like I might be in a very far away part of the U.S., there are some wonderful moments when I know I truly am on the other side of the world.  Some of those times have been when I forget how the time change works and call home to wake my parents up at 5 a.m. or when I tried to buy contact solution and could only find it at the chemist (pharmacist).  But then there are instances such as when I walked into a meeting with a researcher to find a baby wallaby nestled in a sling hanging off the back of a chair.  The joey had been orphaned with a broken leg and the researcher, along with his partner, were nursing her back to health before she could be released back into the wild, much as we do with birds and deer and rabbits and such in the States.  Of course there are also many times when I am reminded how much of a tourist I still am, despite being a student and trying to blend in.  These times have come when I try to pay with two 50 cent pieces, thinking they are 25 cents like our quarters, or when I try to hail a bus from the wrong side of the road and wonder why they don't stop.  And then there are those moments when I just have no idea what someone is saying to me because of the different slang they use here.  These things are all combining to make this experience so much more than it would be otherwise, I would not trade one misunderstanding or unexpected incident for the world and I can't wait to see what the next few months have in store for me.

Unexpectedly Experiential Education

Having only completed two weeks of class I have had the pleasant surprise of learning how hands-on the classes at JCU are.  Despite the some 20,000 students the university plays host to, they somehow manage to give the classes, or at least the upper level classes, an element of experiential learning.  I have so far been on a field trip to a prawn farm where we gathered samples from the ponds to test water quality as well as done a lab in which we got to age fish by counting the annuli in their otoliths, something I have very much been keen to do since starting on my path to be a fish biologist.  Additionally, tomorrow I will be going on another field trip, this time out in Cleveland Bay, to look at the effectiveness of bycatch reduction devices used in prawn fisheries. 

Familiar Contradictions in a Foreign Land

Having taken up an Indigenous Studies course, I am again forced to face the fact that America and Australia are very similar.  The course, taught by a white Australian, is made up of about 25 students, most of which are white.  I can't help but see a mirrored image in my mind of an African American Studies class back in the States.  I don't really understand why, even today, there are such divides, or what it is with this feeling of white supremacy.  One of the goals of this course however, is to remove the biases and stereotypes that often confound the teaching of these types of subjects and deliver the material through unclouded and unobstructed methods.  I am very much looking forward to this class and all that I can learn about the native peoples of this country, and hopefully I won't just be learning as a white woman in a foreign land.

The Small World Paradigm

     James Cook University boasts having a student body made up of around 30% international students.  From my experiences so far, I can't help but think that students from the U.S. make up the majority of those international students.  I have only been at Uni for a week and a half and have already met people who live or go to school within a one hour radius from me at home and others who go to school or live within a two hour radius of my home uni.  Perhaps most surprising is the fact that I've met multiple people who know where my school is and also know other people that go there. 
     So despite coming half way around the world, I am still surrounded by things, ideas and world-views familiar to me.  I'm finding it a bit more difficult to get immersed in this culture because of all the dominant American influences I continue to have be it from the students I am surrounded by or just from the overwhelming abundance of American media and industry that is so prevalent over here.

   Maybe it is a small world after all...but that isn't so bad, right?  It kind of paints a nice picture of the world being weaved together, everything being connected to everything else.  And maybe in the long run it will help us all understand each other and solve more world problems, because what's really hitting me know is that if something affects one place or one group of people, it will undoubtedly affect others.

The Land Down Under

I don't even know where to start, Australia is amazing.  It's also amazingly hot and humid, so much so that it is exhausting.  Even though the night life is great here I haven't experienced much of it because I've been turning in early most nights.  Despite this and the heat, I have had some amazing experiences, and it's hard to believe I've only been here one week.  I landed in Cairns exactly one week and three hours ago.  Since then I have snorkeled and dove on the Great Barrier Reef, learned how to throw a boomerang, held a koala, watched a crocodile feeding, shopped at a night market, went swimming at two beaches, one in a stinger net and one a man-made lagoon, participated in a drum circle, and countless other things.  I've moved into my dorm at James Cook University and gone through a few orientation activities and have another week of orientation before classes start. 

So I have explored two cities in the country so far, Cairns, where we had our program orientation, and Townsville, where the university is located.  Cairns is a rather touristy town.  It isn't too big, and it feels rather safe.  The sidewalks are packed with specialty shops and boutiques and at night and on weekends the streets are lined with vendors selling their wares.  Because of the marine stingers, or jellyfish, it is unsafe to swim off the beach so the city has built a lagoon that overlooks the ocean.  It has a rather picturesque view and is great for the community.  At night, bats can be seen flying across the sky, and during the day seabirds wander around looking for something to eat.  Townsville is also a small town, the university is actually totally separate from the town but luckily there is public transportation that runs between the two locations as well as the beach.  The beach is also closed to swimming for now because of the stingers so there are a few stinger nets which people can swim in with a bit more confidence that they won't get stung.  There is also a pool which filters sea water in and the beach ends at the end of the road at a small amphitheater which is where the drum circle was located.

Umstrittene Grenze

"Boundary in Dispute"
"Home," is by definition the place where one lives permanently.  "Home base," on the other hand is by definition a place from which operations are carried out, a headquarters. 

These two ideas, separated from one another by a single word, have vastly different definitions yet the lines between what to us humans is considered one or the other is often blurred.  In between journeys and adventures, making a quick stop home to unpack and repack does make it seem like the house I grew up in has turned into a home base.  And the sense of permanence is a bit of a foreign concept in a place which doesn't help matters. 

Home can also be of or relating to the place where one lives, in which case I, and many people that I know, have multiple homes.  My house at school and the house I grew up in are both homes to me.  But home base can also refer to the place that players progress to in games.  And so if one considers life a game, then yes, I do always strive at one point or another, to get back to this little, slightly run-down, weather-beaten house, making it, for me, a home base. 

Luckily these terms are interchangeable in many cases and can be partnered to describe a place.  So as I set off on yet another journey, it is good to know that I will have a place to come back to, what is, for now, home and home base.