Check out these Top 10 stories from January 2008 about social action written by our very own TakePart bloggers. From Cadbury to Clooney, these advocacy-oriented stories will encourage awareness and action to create positive changes in our communities and in the world.

1) Clooney Claims Role as Peace Messenger

2) The Reinvestment Fund Helps Low-Income Baltimore Families During Sub-Prime Fallout

3) Ron Hunter Is A Superstar!

4) Great YouTube Video About Burma From Michael Stipe

5) Cadbury Strikes Sweet Deal With Cocoa Farmers

6) Uptown Girls Is Down on Power Lines

7) Greenpeace Persuades Chefs to Support Sustainable Seafood

8 ) BGCI Helps Save Medicinal Plants From Extinction

9) Top 5 Socially Conscious Movie Trailers

10) I Believe That Children See the Future Drawings of Climate Change

Greenpeace is throwing a launch party tomorrow at London’s Old Billingsgate Fish Market to celebrate its new campaign to convince chefs “to sign a pledge to stop using or promoting unsustainable fish species and to support the creation of marine reserves to help fish stocks recover.”

Raymond Blanc, a top British chef, is joining Greenpeace’s efforts to convince his fellow chefs to rethink their fishy choices:

“Protecting the diversity of fish in our seas is as important as looking after wildlife on land. Those of us who are passionate about cooking and serving seafood will be equally passionate about using only sustainable species, as the fish we cook and eat now will determine what we have in the future.”

To learn more about sustainable seafood, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.  

Europeans are eating an awful lot of fish–about $22 billion worth a year, according to a report in today’s New York Times–making them the number one consumer of seafood in the world. Too bad so much of it is illegally harvested from our fished-to-the-breaking point seas, as the article documents.

A companion piece profiles a London restaurateur determined to open a sustainable fish and chip shop. That means, among other things, getting Brits to consume less cod and develop a taste for sustainably harvested species like pollack and sole. But with overfishing running rampant trying to meet consumer demand, is there any kind of fish that’s not getting battered?

To learn more about sustainable seafood, check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch.