Hello Shoal! Thank you so much for accepting our interview! Would it be possible to tell us a bit more about yourselves and what your main goals are?
SHOAL: SHOAL is a conservation initiative founded with the purpose of catalysing urgent action for the most threatened freshwater species around the world. With one in three freshwater fish and amphibians threatened with extinction, freshwater is at the sharp end of the planet’s biodiversity crisis. Yet, remarkably, there wasn’t an organisation focused exclusively on global freshwater species conservation until SHOAL’s conception early in 2019.
SHOAL has three strategic pillars that guide our work: to INSPIRE, MOBILISE and ACT.
Freshwater species suffer from a communications issue: many people don’t realise how threatened they are, but also how beautiful, diverse, exciting they can be! Even big budget nature documentaries don’t give them anywhere near the same level of focus as marine or terrestrial species. And, as Sir David Attenborough famously said, “No one will protect what they don't care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced”. We therefore hope to INSPIRE people about the beauty of freshwater species with the aim of encouraging people to show more care for them.
SHOAL works on a partnership model: our core team is very small, with only three full time members of staff. This allows us to keep core costs to a minimum which means we can direct more of our funds to the vital conservation work. We work closely with partners – most often people and organisations that are based in the areas where the conservation work is needed – and empower them to mobilise action, through directly funding them and offering our expertise and extensive network.
The third pillar is to ACT. This is the urgent work that is done on the frontlines of conservation: in the rivers, lakes, ponds, aquifers and swamps of the world, helping halt extinctions and recover populations of the most threatened species.
MANOA: Shoal means a large number of fish swimming together. How do your teams work/swim together to help the world understand the importance of freshwater ecosystems? Why should we protect them and how?
SHOAL: As mentioned above, partners are essential to the work SHOAL does. We work with leading conservation organisations and scientists in our priority regions to ensure we are helping to give the focus species the best possible chances of survival.
We are also extremely lucky to be hosted by two fantastic organisations: Re:wild in the USA, and Synchronicity Earth in the UK. Both are first class conservation organisations that are incredibly helpful and supportive, which allows SHOAL to grow and mature as an organisation.
We also work closely with the IUCN Freshwater Fish Specialist Group.
Collaboration is so important to SHOAL that our very name was chosen to reflect it! Like a large number of fish swimming together, we shoal with the world’s leading freshwater experts to ensure we all have the best possible chances of success.
It is important to protect and conserve freshwater species for the same reason that it is important to protect marine and terrestrial species: because biodiversity is essential to a healthy, functioning planet. Without a diverse web of animals, plants and fungi, the support systems for all life on Earth would collapse. The reality is, humans need these species to provide us with food, clean water, and medicines, regulate pests and disease, prevent extreme weather events, and many other essential things. All life is interconnected, and as we start to chip away at some, other parts of the whole get damaged. The more that is damaged, the more irreparable and catastrophic the results will be.
How we should protect them is a much more complicated answer! There are lots of ways: anything from creating protected areas where species can thrive without legal interference from humans, to boosting population numbers by breeding programmes. The best thing individuals can do is to learn about the issues, volunteer their time to help in some way and donate to causes they are passionate about.
Like a large number of fish swimming together, we shoal with the world’s leading freshwater experts to ensure we all have the best possible chances of success.
MANOA: Millions of people depend on fish and, according to WWF, fresh water houses the incredible number of 40% of all known fish species. Why aren't we more aware of the issues and why do many people not feel concerned?
SHOAL: The stories haven’t been told as loudly or shared as widely as they need to be. Until a few years ago, many people in the West were not in the slightest aware of the issue of plastic pollution. Since the Blue Planet II series, narrated by Sir David Attenborough and released in 2017, the stories have been told many times by filmmakers, journalists, podcasters, photographers, to the point where many people are now at least aware of – and oftentimes outraged by – the amount of plastic that ends up in the world’s oceans.
It is the same with individual species and groups of species: many people didn’t know about the urgent plight of whales until the Save the Whales movement started in the 1970s, or the vital need to protect rhinos until Save the Rhino was formed in the 1990s. Until the issue is communicated repeatedly and communicated well, many people simply won’t know about the issue. And if they don’t know, they won’t be concerned.
MANOA: Your work is mainly focused on south east Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam) as well as Mexico, India's western ghats and Lake Tanganyika, one of Africa's Great Lakes. Do these regions present a higher risk and are the issues the same in all of them? How do you raise awareness in such populated regions where fresh water is vital?
SHOAL: The priority regions were chosen as they are the places where SHOAL can have the biggest impact. They all have high concentrations of threatened freshwater species with very little or no existing conservation work. The five priority regions you mention – Mexico, the Rift Valley Lakes, Southeast Asia, the Western Ghats and the Mediterranean - are the first stage of our prioritisation. In the future, we will expand our work to the Amazon, the Congo Basin, and southern China.
The issues vary from place to place and species to species, but there are a handful of reasons behind freshwater biodiversity loss that repeat in regions right around the globe: the introduction of invasive species, habitat loss and damage such as through sandmining, pollution, overexploitation, river flow being broken by barriers such as dams, and the damaging effects of climate change.
SHOAL always seeks to engage the local community as much as possible. Community members are the ones that live in and around the habitats we are aiming to conserve and are ultimately the ones who can ensure the sustainability of projects. We work closely with local governments, local NGOs and local universities to ensure we are best able to engage these communities who often depend on healthy freshwater environments for their own health.
Amazingly, even conservative estimates there may still be around 75% of the total species on Earth that have not yet been described to science.
MANOA: Human activity can be dangerous for our fresh water ecosystems, but fish too! How do you restore a lake that has invasive fishes? What impact do they have and how can they be removed?
SHOAL: There are at least two main ways to go about doing this: you can either do what SHOAL’s partners Yayasan Bumi Sawerigading are currently doing in Sulawesi’s Lake Mahalona, which is to fish out the invasives. This is laborious and time consuming and it is near impossible to fish out all the invasives, particularly in a large body of water. We recognise that the chances of all the invasive fish being removed from Lake Mahalona are very low, but the aim is to get their numbers down to a level that allows populations of endemic and native species to recover.
The other known method is to eliminate all the species in a body of water, and then restock it with the natives. Clearly this would be highly damaging to larger bodies of water, and impossible to do without causing extinctions in an area where the rate of endemism is high, like Lake Mahalona.
We are currently looking into other methods of removing invasives from lakes and rivers, so watch this space!
MANOA: What causes the appearance of invasive species?
SHOAL: An invasive species is defined as a species that is not native or endemic to a particular area and which has colonised that area to the point of damaging it. Invasives can be introduced on purpose, such as rainbow trout in lakes and rivers around the world being released to provide a reliable source of protein for people, or by accident, such as species surviving on boats and fishing equipment that are taken from one body of water to another.
It is thought that the invasive cichlids in Lake Mahalona were purposefully released by people as they could be sold to collectors for a good price. The plan backfired, as the cichlids bred quickly and aggressively outcompeted the endemic species, leading to population crashes of many species.
MANOA: Let's talk about your brilliant "lost fishes campaign" and your TOP 10 most wanted list! You say that to save the species that may have gone extinct you first need to find them! Where are they hiding and how are your conservation teams working to install conservation programs to help bring these species back?
SHOAL: There are more than 300 species on the Lost Fishes master list, which were discovered in all kinds of freshwater environments such as lakes, swamps, and aquifers right around the world. There is therefore no one place in particular that they are hiding.
From the Top 10 Most Wanted list alone, there is a species from an underground cave (the Haditha cavefish), at least four species from river systems, and at least four species from lakes.
In the case of rivers, the species could be hiding in different parts of the river systems to where they were first described. In lakes, the species may inhabit deeper areas of the lake than the areas that are fished.
In the case of the Batman River loach, which hadn’t been seen since 1974 but was rediscovered by Turkish researchers at the end of 2020, success came from searching upstream of the Batman River dam, whereas previous searches for the species had focused on lower parts of the Batman River, downstream of the dam.
Freshwater is such a mysterious realm: there can be so much life happening underneath the surface that we humans can’t easily see. Not knowing where the species are hiding is all part of the mystery and the fun!
MANOA: Other species are still unknown to mankind. Could you tell us more about the newly discovered Gollum Snakehead, also known as (drumroll) the Aenigmachanna Gollum, how it was discovered and if it is really still possible to discover new species nowadays?
SHOAL: The Gollum snakehead discovery is a wonderful tale of citizen science and the interconnected world we live in: in August 2018, a fish enthusiast spotted three strange-looking fish in a paddy field in Oorakam in the Indian state of Kerala. He didn’t recognise them and published some photos on social media to ask if anybody recognised the species. Soon after, the images reached the desk of fisheries scientist and freshwater conservation biologist Rajeev Raghavan, who was intrigued by the species and sent scientists to collect some live specimens. Upon examination, he found the fish was not just a new species but, along with the also recently discovered Mahabali snakehead, from a whole new family of fishes!
There are many, many thousands of species left to be discovered. Amazingly, even conservative estimates there may still be around 75% of the total species on Earth that have not yet been described to science. Some suggest we have only described a tiny 1% of the total!
There is a lot of magic still out there that has yet to be discovered.
MANOA: Last but not least, what would you say to the younger generations to help them understand the importance of your work and why they should care and protect fresh water around the world?
SHOAL: All life matters: not just the cute, the fluffy, the large or the exciting. Biodiversity is critical to the very frameworks that support human existence: it ensures health and food security, it helps fight disease, and it provides livelihoods for many millions of people. Ultimately, healthy rivers, lakes and wetlands mean healthier people.
Freshwater ecosystems have suffered from neglect for far too long, and time is running out to save many of the species that live in them. Fortunately, aquatic ecosystems have been shown to bounce back quickly when given the chance: with a bit of foresight, investment and work, wetlands can go from being near dead zones to thriving in just a couple of years.
Young people today can expect to see many changes to the environment in their lifetimes. We are at a critical stage in human history, when environmental collapse is on the horizon: we are witnessing the sixth mass extinction in real time, and it is being caused by humans! There is still time to do something about it. Do people want to sit and watch destruction happen in front of them, or do they want to rise to the challenge of protecting and conserving habitats and species so that they may still exist for generations to come?
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