Note: This content originated on our online community inspiring conservation, RarePlanet.

This post was written by D’Shan Maycock of Friends of the Environment. She is the Pride campaign manager for the  Abaco Island campaign to protect the spiny lobster population by reducing the harvesting of juvenile lobsters.

Our annual Earth Day Science fair was a huge success. More than 400 students, teachers and parents all came out to support local school students as they competed in one of four categories. The theme for this year was “Conserving Abaco’s Lobster Populations Now & For The Future.”

Miss Earth Bahamas, Krystle Brown did an excellent job speaking to the students. Everyone was attentive during her speech and commented that she really had a way of speaking with the students at their level. She was also a big hit with the students, who surrounded her waiting in line for an autograph.

She spoke well of the campaign and the “need to protect baby crawfish if we want to have cracked lobsters, crawfish salad and minced crawfish on our plates.” I was amazed at how much she knew of our campaign. Her presence alone further endorsed our message, especially with the youth.

Many of the presentations showed evidence of the campaign’s impact over the entire island.  Some students even interviewed fishermen and other members of the Abaco community about threats facing local lobster populations and methods to protect them from juvenile fishing.  One of the project brochures even mentioned Spike the crawfish, the campaign mascot!

This year was also the first time we had major sponsors involved in the Earth Day Science Fair.  The Ministry of Tourism highlighted the science fair on their calendar of activities for National Coastal Awareness Month and provided bus and ferry transportation for students and teachers traveling from the south and north of the island. They also flew in the national television station, ZNS, who televised the entire event and aired it on the following Monday on the evening news. The local television station, BCN, also televised the event and aired it on TV and radio broadcasts.  In addition, the local paper was there to cover the event.   All the media attention ensured that the entire island heard about the campaign.

Funding for prizes such as laptop computers, projectors, and DVD players were provided by a local insurance company, Colina and the Bahamas National Trust.

Below are some of the fantastic project displays:

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