| anyone wanna be an exporter? anyone?
"So are you saying that there is impending intrusion on these "Pristine Reefs" from other reef related industries and their very damaging practices? If so, what has kept them at bay all these years and what has changed to allow them to become a threat?"
Civilization is coming ...civilation is coming!
Now that Papua New Guinea has been a tourist destination for jet set divers ...a mining and timber country and a lobster and tuna country....for quite some time.... the experience with world commerce has helped open the eyes of a new generation of educated local people and they are driving PNG to lot of places quickly.
This momentum is building and if you want to keep it clean, you have to imprint people on better, sustainable ways from the very beginning.
Pristine reefs do exist there to be sure, but thats away from the villages for the most part and beyond where the village fishers can even go.
Why?
Because each village has its own territorial limit and cannot infringe on the neighboring villages reefs. Each village area has a collection management plan that forbids collecting beyond the boundary anyway.
Unlike the Philippine and Indonesian examples, [ where everyones mindset on this stuff comes from] the traditional village boundaries extent into the ocean in PNG limiting fishers to the finite square miles in their own back yards which must be taken care of so not to suffer depletion and destruction of the more advanced collecting societies.
Cyanide and coral destruction would be worse here as there would be no passage to other peoples reefs or to those pristine ones.
What we really have is a "pristine system" that can and should be spread to other countries. Especially countries where they have made a mockery of their own fisheries sector, laws and so called management schemes.
The for profit part of this is for the exporters to make whoever they may be...so long as they operate within the laws we take part in creating , monitoring and if need be revoking.
The law against ruining corals to collect will be a new mandate...a new standard that everything plays off of. Everyone in the chain will be guilty as the fishers contract and collect for the exporter who is willing to buy their fish and help set them up. Fishers and the exporter will work it more like in most countries where they depend on each other and not in the wild open flea market system of the Philippines and Indo.
It is the actualization of the oft theorized vertical integration of the chain of custody. Ie. staff divers working for and with the buyer who must work for and with the collector.
Coral breaking and poisoning threatens the permits upon which he activity depends and the exporter will have to work to keep his staff clean as well.
Anyone wanna be an exporter? anyone?
We at Eco Ez are a non profit org working as consultants for the government. We don't sell fish.
Steve |