Ribafish in action for a cleaner planet: "We need to restore our planet to its old glory"
Domagoj Jakopović Ribafish, apart from being an inveterate hedonist, also lives "green" with all his heart, especially when it comes to our Adriatic. That's why we pestered him to take 15 minutes for us to tell us what's new in his life.
A little more than half a year has passed since Earth Day, the day when we joined together and cleaned Lijepa Naša with joint efforts in order to return the "old shine" to our planet and the environment. But one hard-working fish tries to be active all year round in cleaning, and since all of us involved in the Earth Resolution project love such stories, we talked to the always good-natured Ribafish about what he is currently doing and how he became an ambassador for shark protection in the Adriatic.
You recently took part in a large clean-up campaign, in which you, together with about thirty volunteers, cleaned the waste scattered in the parking lots and along the coast below the "Amphora" hotel in Žnjan, Split. How did everything look and how satisfied are you with the action?
First of all, I would like to thank the brothers and sisters from Cleaning Bears for their support, organization and arrival at the destination at the end of the working day, and on top of that on Monday, so the number of thirty people is really great. This was just one of a dozen actions by Medvjedic and my association RokOtok, in which, through cleaning, we want to educate young and old, tourists and locals, all living and semi-living, about all the dangers that too much waste thrown in the wrong places brings us - rather, in nature.We were greeted by a beautiful day, a clear sea full of bathers and a terribly dirty environment, so in just two or three hours we collected almost half a ton of waste from the road, from the bushes and along the coast. It's terrible what kind of people we live among, but it's great that some of us understand these problems and are tackling them little by little. The world today is going in a very wrong direction and if we do not do something soon, it does not bode well for our only Planet.
We know that you spend a lot of time in the sea as part of the RokOtok project. What annoys you more, when you step on a beer cap on the beach or when you come across a plastic bag in the sea while swimming?
The worst thing is when you swim for hours and then you bite into a cigarette butt, a plastic "kerumašica" or, worst of all, at the Šilo - Crikvenica swimming marathon - a tetrapak of milk. Ancient, already half-decomposed, ugh... Also, when you see some beautiful young being light a cigarette, sunbathing on the beach, and then put it out in the sand, or get stuck among the pebbles...
How did you come to cooperate with White Shark, our gaming brand that is an official donor of the International Union for Conservation of Nature with an emphasis on shark protection?
You wouldn't believe me, but after swimming the entire Adriatic, I concluded that every fifth question from the curious was - did you see a shark and did it attack you? It's amazing what Steven Spielberg did with his movie, that is, how he turned a beautiful, normal sea creature into the world's number one enemy. Nowadays, serious swimmers feel uncomfortable when they can no longer see the bottom below them, let alone those who are not "you" with swimming... so let me answer for the hundred and fiftieth time - I have not seen a shark because neither he is interested in a fat man in plastic wrap, nor do I go around challenging him in any way. In the world, fewer people die from shark attacks every year than every month on Croatian roads, so this sea creature should be viewed with completely different eyes and only admired for the fact that it has not changed over millions of years. When I heard that people from White Shark are allocating a lot of money for the protection of these animals, without much thought I agreed to cooperate, to our mutual satisfaction. Of course, it's not pleasant when you meet something bigger than you in the sea, in fact, gabions and kettlebells are the maximum, but that's no reason to k ill and destroy everything that looks dangerous, right?
Next summer I'm embarking on a new adventure, two seasons of swimming around Istria, while educating children and parents about the dangers of throwing waste into nature, the amount of plastic that is slowly but surely catching up with the number of living organisms on the planet, research, adventure, games, searching for hidden treasures and placing Geocaching, and I hope that the RokOtok and White Shark Association will do a lot more for the quality of free time of children and adults, as well as for the protection of sharks. Swim with us!
Content created in collaboration with White Shark.
Source: Večernji List, Native Tim NL, 25.10.2023.