Mary Ralph

Mangonui, 0494, New Zealand New Zealand

teacher / oral historian

2009 was a great year for me. I was awarded a Teacher Fellowship by the Royal Society of NZ. Fully funded to explore and research 'what was the fishing like'. (True). The best part was interviewing old timers who could talk about their fishing experiences and describe schools of fish in such abundance - it was unbelieveable - but I heard this time and time again. As Joni Mitchel once said "you don't know what you've got - till it's gone". I hope my research goes some way to restoring a marine world to what it was once like.