The ordinary man fights back...

I don't know if you have seen "Sharkwater," "The Cove'" or "The End of the Line," if not you should check them out. The major link between all three is that they are based on the destruction of our oceans and the animals playing vital roles to it's health.

All three films centre around the views and action of individuals who are intent on making a difference. Of those individuals, The Cove's Rick O'Barry is the one I feel the strongest bond with. O'Barry is the man who trained the dolphins used in Flipper and who, upon seeing the misery felt by these intelligent creatures whilst in captivity, decided to spend his life fighting against the global trade in capturing dolphins for aquaria.

I have spent many happy days in Aquaria all around the world, I am from Manchester and now live in Leeds, neither allow me the opportunities to regularly get into the open ocean and see these animals in their natural environment so it was my only way to see them up close and aquaria can be excellent places for people to learn about our oceans and to hopefully care about their protection.

However, using animals to entertain us through training them to perform tricks is a wholly different matter all together. Rick O'Barry realises this and spends his life striving to put a stop to the trade of dolphins for captivity and the sickening butchery they suffer every year in Japan for their meat. The dolphins not bought for captivity are herded into a small cove and butchered for their meat, babies and all, by hollering fishermen, with the full support of the Japanese government.

Rick O'Barry doesn't stand by and tut tut or write petitions, he gets stuck in and actually does something about it!

The biggest enemy we have is arrogance, the arrogance we as a species have towards the planet's animals, the arrogance of the wealthy who feel they can dictate to us what is morally right and wrong and the arrogance of governments who dictate to the proles only what they deem we should be aware of.

I have seen the difference myself, when ordinary people fight back against this arrogance. My other great love is Manchester United Football Club. We are all aware of what is happening under the ownership of the Glazer family and last season, after the publishing of the Club's bond prospectus in which it arrogantly declared that despite all other clubs reducing or freezing season ticket prices due to the recession, they would continue to increase them, forcing out ordinary, working class supporters in favour of corporate visitors who did not have an ounce of the passion of the ordinary local supporters, some of whom had been going to Old Trafford for decades. Manchester United has one of the highest numbers of working class supporters in the Premier League, given the economic situation in the surrounding areas, poor areas when ordinary people struggle to make ends meet but commit large sums of money to support the team week in week out.

So what is my point? My point is that the club arrogantly felt that these working class people didn't have the intelligence or inclination to fight back but fight back they did, making news around the globe due to the inspired "green and gold" campaign and showing that the undesirable element of the club's support (those who didn't gobble up every bit of tat in the club's megastore and purchase overpriced flat beer in the concourse at half time) did indeed have the intelligence and motivation to protest in a forceful yet peaceful, law abiding manner, causing great embarrassment for the Glazers and the Club's Chief Exec, David Gill.

This season, for the first time in decades, Season Ticket sales are down and the club has resorted to the embarrassing practice of begging people to buy the thousands left over. Thousands of ordinary people have made the biggest sacrifice they could and said "we are not taking this anymore" sacrificing their enjoyment of cheering on the team and breaking what has been a habit for their entire lives to show they want change.

What has this got to do with the preservation of our oceans? Manchester United is the world's biggest football club, everyone has heard of them so the goings on at Old Trafford are guaranteed to be worldwide news. The state of our oceans and what we and or governments are inflicting upon them is not, unfortunately, as well known.

The first step in forcing change is education, we must educate others about what we know is happening and the cataclysmic damage it is doing to our oceans and ultimately ourselves. With the facts we can then allow people to decide if they feel it is a cause worth fighting for. Trying to force people to care often has the opposite effect so instead we must inspire others to act in ways they feel comfortable. This may be writing petitions, learning which species are on the endangered list and refusing to support their trade through boycotting them and the restaurants who sell them, Marlin, Bluefin Tuna, Shark etc...

The next and possibly most important factor in affecting change is courage. The courage to put your head above the parapit and act, speak out and say that we will not accept this anymore. Nothing terrifies governments or the corporate juggernaut more than the little people doing something and fighting back. They are so comfortable in their arrogant belief that you don't believe you can change the world that they get away with doing what they want, when they want.

I have news for you, you CAN change the world. With courage, belief and knowledge you can make a difference so that our children and their children can continue to enjoy the oceans in a responsible manner. Rick O'Barry is one of those people and I intend to be another and would love nothing more than for you to join with me and do something about what is happening every day. What has made the fight against the Glazer family so successful is that people who don't care, are destroying something that is the most important thing in the world to millions of ordinary people. What is more important than the continued survival of the human race?! If we continue to let these people destroy our oceans, the environmental effect it will have on humans is nothing short of disastrous.

Now is the time to ask yourself, do you care about the future of the planet for your children and their children? Do you care that we as a race, continue to allow corporations to get away with acts that are so morally reprehensible they defy belief?

If the answer is yes, ask yourself "what can I do?" You'd be surprised that even a small act on your behalf could change the world one day.