Good points have been brought up on unethical practices, corruption and so on. I'm in agreement that most of this would be very difficult, if not impossible to correct without signifigant government/environmental lobbists involvement.
What we can have more influence over are the practices of our hobby. I'm with Herman on this one. We are part of the problem. Plenty of people here on this site buy healthy fish, but lose them to poor or improper aquarium conditions and simply repalce them. Aaron brings up a great point with impulse buys. I bite my lip every time I see someone buy a mandarin fish when they run a nano that is 1 month old with 12 pounds of LR because they had to have it. Or too many fish in a small tank with nitrate levels through the roof. This stuff drives me crazy. Impulse buys should be strongly discouraged here, but instead, I see people say, "yeah, I did the same thing... couldn't resist". And even have the balls to put a smiley face at the end. Why promote this behavior?
Next topic is the QT. I posted a thread here on MR asking the simple question if people QT or not. Everything in this hobby is debated... EVERYTHING! Glass or acrylic? DSB, SSB or BB? MH, T-5, PC or LED? Big skimmer or little skimmer? The list goes on and on for these debates. Yet the one thing that even guys like Julian Sprung, Anthony Calfo, Bob Fenner, all the guys we pay money to watch them speak, buy their books, read their magazine articles, etc. all agree that fish should be in QT before they go into a main display. No one argues this yet very few actually do it. When I posted the thread, someone wrote that QT is for amatures who are clueless and experts who have the room. This particular person uses "good husbandry" to avoid losses. Last time I checked, QT is considered good husbandry. He made it sound like he never lost a fish. This attitude will seriuosly keep people from establishing a QT or admitting that they have one which may cause newbie's to believe they really don't need one. An LFS cannot QT due to time and profits. QT is the hobbyists responsibility.
Another thing we allow and entertain on this site is when people don't have the budget to set up the correct aquarium for their pets and ask which expensive item they can pass on until they can afford it. To hell with that. How about you wait until you have the money to give the animals a proper environment? If you can't afford a good skimmer, I already know that you don't have a chiller and you'll have some die-off over the summer. Rather than buying a chiller, skimmer, appropriate lighting, etc. they replace what dies. I don't care how fish and corals are collected, they usually don't fare too well when your tank hits 90 degrees in the summer and your nitrates are high. They best lighting doesn't penetrate water as well that is not well skimmed. Replacing live stock is cheaper up front, but in the long run it is more expensive and more importantly, you've wasted animals and go right back to these collectors to get more stuff.
I'm pretty sure we've all had catastrophic failures along the way, for example, the compressor on my chiller crapped out last year while I was in Iraq. A lot of stuff had to be replaced. These things happen and members of MR fragged their own colonies to help out. I've fragged and given stuff away as well. That is as zero impact as you can get.
We should look at better discipline. Setting up a QT and not eventually turning it into another fully stocked tank. Resist impulse buys especially when you know your system cannot sustain it. Make sure you have the budget to provide the best possible aquarium.
What it comes down to is there is no good in trying to effect change in the Far East when your own backyard finances the problems.
rangehat 
