Stories

CharitySub, a subscription-model fundraising organization, has selected Future of Fish as a featured nonprofit within the larger topic of sustainable seafood, the organization's cause for September. CharitySub subscribers pledge $5 a month, and each month, they vote on which of the three hand-selected featured nonprofits gets the aggregated sum of their subscription money. Each month…

Journalist Rob Walker and semiotics analyst Joshua Glenn undertook a fascinating experiment recently to see whether story changes the value of an object. They collected an assortment of 100 yard sale oddities, purchased for an average of $1.25 each, and then asked notable writers to invent fictional histories for the items. Even though the descriptions…

SAN FRANCISCO, California — May 7, 2012 — Future of Fish, led by founder and executive director Cheryl Dahle, has been selected as one of only four Finalists for the 2012 Buckminster Fuller Challenge, the prestigious annual design science competition named "Socially-Responsible Design's Highest Award" by Metropolis Magazine. The Challenge awards $100,000 to support the…

A recent editorial in The Economist would have us believe that of all the problems facing the oceans—acidification, plastics pollution, decline of habitat—overfishing is the easy win, the simple fix. Really, the article argues, this whole overfishing mess is the fault of fishermen. If fishers would just wise-up to the long-term environmental consequences of taking too much, they would…

Bloomberg Businessweek just published an exposé of debt bondage and modern slavery in the fishing industry in New Zealand. In the wake of the report, both Wal-Mart and Safeway are launching investigations into their New Zealand supply chains. The personal stories behind these headlines are horrific: 30-hour shifts of hard physical labor, no medical help for severed fingers or broken…