What can MAC do?

[clarionreef]

No Vitz,
We are not on the same page and not striving for the same thing.
The division breaks down accordingly:
A] Those who use all they can to solve the problem...and act according to belief.
and B] those who use the problem...to solve all they can...and believe according to what is convenient and good for the self.
Using the issues to serve the self is not the same as sacrificing the self to serve the issue. There are obvious differences in motivations of people who address these issues and pontificate on them from afar.
Confusing the two harms the sincere and elevates the insincere to equal status.
Learning to think one way yet act another as convenience dictates is the skill of a survivor or a chameleon. But adapting and changing to fit the gameplan of the money source...like an environmental gold digger helps to explain why the core issues gets overlooked. All success will begin in the field...but this is a minority opinion. It is abandoned to serve the notions of the "leaders" of the various groups who can best be understood as business competitors in search of capital.
Your point that there are differences is as moot and obvious as
pointing out that politicians and candidates disagree, food relief agencies
disagree and save the whale groups disagree...on a great deal.
CORL was the best chance to get all the trainers and the business types on the same trajectory. It got everyone together and was close to ignition. Its detractors seem to have won for now. Their reward? Nothing. Nothing is happening in place of what could have been happening.
CORL efforts would've dovetailed nicely with other agendas. Now the CORL trainers will go to less business friendly, more Nationalistic Filipino environmental groups to train. The primary agenda will shift again.
Only this time, you won't even have a vote. This time you won't have one of you own to question and one from the trade to grill over every little thing you manufacture disagreement over.
Filipino leadership may find this trade less worthy than the brown nosing, cow-towing 'anything for money' Yanks. They may even arrive at conclusions that place Philippine interests ahead of foreign business interests.
God forbid they do that everyone as the trades behavior and Philippine interests are not on the same page.
Steve

 

[JeremyR]

I"ve lived without phil & indo fish for 5 years... if the "players" want to continue to keep arguing and "politicking" rather than fixing the problem, I"ll continue to buy elsewhere.. we are now getting some phil fish that evidentaly come from imperial and are happy with them.. hopefully they and marivi can stay in business and maybe while all you people fight & argue people like them will get where we want them to go in spite of your "help". Or maybe not. Time will tell.

 

[clarionreef]

Jeremy,
And how do you imagine that Marivi and Imperial came to be?
How did their netcaught fish suddenly appear to them?
This struggle is theirs exactly...and its cool you support it.
You made an interesting comment about 'just doing it' without all the freedom of expression and debate. How can we proceed as you suggest? Or shall we just give up and base our businesses on the "snow white" trade in coral and reef items?
The crimes of our industry are unfortunate. The avoidance of them for the sake of uninterrupted cash flow equally so.
Pardon me for trying. Selling out would make life so much simpler. Ahh, the simplicity of pure buy and sell...buy and sell.
Steve

 

[JeremyR]

I didn't say "just do it" nor did I say you should sell out.. we haven't sold out.. selling out would be getting the same old drug caught crap as everyone else.. exactly the opposite, I'm glad you are trying. What I meant is all the "players" need to set aside their egos and do the right thing for the sake of doing it, not for the status or whatnot.. I think the reason nobody can come together is because most of the parties involved want to be the ones to get credit for fixing the problem, so rather than cooperate they actually try to downplay or discredit the other forces at play. It's really getting old.

 

[clarionreef]

Jeremy,
I agree with that and it is exactly what we get when people inside the industry remain uninvolved and let non industry people so all the 'reformin'.
There has never been an industry outfit involved and in charge of the development and promotion of remedies for its own salvation. This has led to predictable misunderstanding and discord.
We marinelife dealers need legal. sustainably collected livestock to run our businesses with. This is the prime directive for us...not ego, turf, territory or grants to maintain our salaries. We measure success in fish supply. What else?
To yield to ego and turf driven professional consultants who don't get wet is to accept failure in the reform of our trade. We need fish production...not knaive, non implementable intentions on paper.
Fish come from the other side of the world, not LA and the issue is critical to people who have to buy fish every week and find such a small pool to choose from. When Marivi, Guia and Imperial have low variety it means we as a business will lose a few more thousand in sales. Try doing this for a few years and see how you feel about the groups "handling it" for us. They are not handling it and there lies the rub...and the debate.
To serve in the cause or to exploit the cause in the service of self. Between these two factions its hard to imagine a compromise.
With more industry professionals like yourself involved, many things could change for the better. But since 90% of the "reformers"handling the industry response to things are not of the industry... and therefore measure duccess differently... the lack of serious success is easier to understand.
I need to go order fish now [sigh]. There is a majestic, a net caught majestic on the list. I'm so excited to get my 4th netcaught majestic of the year. Silly huh?
Steve

 

[jamesw]

Good post Jeremy.

If everyone would put their egos aside when they enter this forum (not just everyone in this forum, I mean EVERYONE), we would really start getting somewhere - as a team.

My opinion only,

Sincerely,
James Wiseman

 

[JeremyR]

My other point steve, is that you need the phil to survive maybe.. I don't. I can't fly to the phillipines. I will never be directly involved in an organization like MAC, it's just not possible. I'm able to give input, and my input is currently quit acting like a bunch of babies and politicians. You are the only one replying, but my posts are not necessarily directed at you. Yeah, I think the industry obviously needs more representation in the reform movement.. but since I have such a low opinion of most LA wholesalers.. I'm not sure I'd feel better about things if they all decided to try to get on the program.

I also choose to vote with my dollar. I don't make much of an impact by not buying the indo & phil special of the week, but if even a quarter of the stores had some sort of morals or knowlege, things would start to change just from their buying habits. Same could be said of the big wholesalers. If any of them had any morals and didn't buy from the "cyanide cartel" reform wouldn't be an issue, it would have happened long ago. Money speaks. But look at haiti.. no cyanide, and the fish are just as bad. Nobody seems to care.. I don't see anyone sending net collectors over to haiti to train them... and it's alot closer. I was talking to a major florida collector/wholesaler a few days ago, and he openly admitted to using quinaldine and encouraging divers to use it. It's too difficult to catch them the hard way he said. I'm not naming names.. but these fisheries are degrading on our doorstep, and nobody seems to care.

So I've rambled a bit. It's late, but I think if you all stepped back and looked at everything from an outsiders viewpoint, you'd see all you are accomplishing is to alienate anyone who might try to help you.

 

[clarionreef]

Jeremy,
OK lets be nice and pleasing to all you say...and then you expose the quinaldine boys in the Keys, scorch Haiti for their bad quality [they hold the fish in the same bags for days] and give a withering rebuke of the entire LA community of importers...wow!
See, there are things to care about and worth fighting for afterall.
I'm taking notes on this interesting approach to peace. OK, like you said, its getting late.

It seems to be true that the more the reef trade shies away from fish and more into coral, the less relevant the cyanide fish issue becomes to many dealers. This distance from the issue gives one the luxury to try and remain above the fray and require less of the Philippines.
However, requiring a certain weekly tonnage of wild coral from Indonesia to pay the rent is equally controversial and unsettling. Rest assured that the greatest expose in the aquarium trade is still untold.
This industry is 99% wildcaught and dependant upon two countries for its survival. Both of those countries need serious field reform to keep the trade sustainable. If this boat gets a hole in it, everyones going to end up in the water. Not just one side.
To remain quiet and uninvolved and afraid of debate and differences of opinion is no answer. The divisions in our ranks are natural. There is no simplistic one party doctrine to unite under. Like any healthy American style town hall campaign, there are losers and winners in the debates. The winners become councilmen or senators. Its how we decide everything in this country and aside from some occassionaly dirty, mud-slinging campaigns here and there, it remains our best means of issue resolution and candidate selection.
For someone to decry the debates on these boards as unhealthy...thats just silly. Freedom of speech and competition in ideas is the norm in nearly every country now...even the Philippines and Indo.
To call for unity under one doctrine assumes a perfect doctrine. I'd like to hear whos got one. Of course no one has. Thats just another way of defending the status quo which is illegal, controversial, unsustainable and unacceptable.
Freedom of speech and interplay of ideas is what this forum is about. Is it not?
Steve

 

[JeremyR]

I know it's a complicated problem.. I guess I've just been seeing the same arguements for as long as I can remember, and with the exception of a few fish from the aforementioned "net caught" exporters, fish industry wide have taken a huge decline whether they are net caught or cyanide caught. It's frustrating.

Anyways, anyone who knows me knows I"m not an "everybody love everyone" peace sign toting hippy... hence my comments on the LA importers, haiti, the keys, etc. All I was trying to say is while you are all excercising your free speech, nothing has happened in like what.. 30 years? Except for a couple of little companies trying to do the right thing on their own. Someone would at this point chime in and say " much has happened.. how can you say nothing has happened". First of all, I'm not just complaining about the phillipines, it's everywhere, including hawaii. 2nd, if that person was in this country and buying fish, he'd see why there is reason to be such a cynic. Rhetoric is up, quality is down. I hope you guys do all get together at macna & the hawaii thing... some common ground needs to be met. I can't speak for the rest of the shopowners.. just myself... but I'm tired of having this continual ethical dilemma.. of seeing major decline, even in fish caught in US waters... this whole issue has me burnt to the core, to the point that I have been seeking an alternate livelyhood.

 

[PeterIMA]

Jeremy, I tend to agree with your comments. About two weeks ago, I got a telephone call (in my other life as Research Scientist with Florida Fish and Wildlife) from a collector in Puerto Rico who has been using quinaldine for over 20 years. I tried to reason with him that fish could be caught with nets. But, he wasn't listening. I finally sent him the bibliography on quinaldine that I have. He needed the information to defend his use of quinaldine with government regulators setting up a coral reef management plan in PR.

I am somewhat discouraged that my suggestion to meet at MACNA this year, and later at Marine Ornametals O4 seems to have died because one dipstick on this forum did not see the need for the "Reformists" (not REEForm) to meet to reach consensus on a plan. No one volunteered to work on this. Why? If the industry and hobby does not take steps to clean up these problems, eventually government regulators will step in to ban the trade (maybe not immediately).

Peter Rubec

 

[clarionreef]

Peter,
AMDA will be having its annual face to face board meeting and will host any and all comers in the search for progress. We already have established the net and training fund to start with and will be corraborating on training efforts in places futher away from Manila than usual.
The venue we have already established is in place. Welcome one and all.
Steve Robinson
AMDA president

 

[jamesw]

Steve,

I'm glad to hear that AMDA has established the net and training fund. Have you decided what the funding goal is (Of course it's "Sky's the limit, but let's be realistic). Have you also finalized the training plan and budget? If so, I think that's a big move forward and look forward to hearing more about it at MACNA. Some hard numbers from an organization that says "We will do XXX for $YY,YYY" will be very refreshing.

Cheers
James

 

[Anonymous]

Steve,

I noticed that James' excellent question has gone unanswered for nearly two months. Nancy Swart and I asked similar questions 5-6 months ago. Are there any new developments in the specifics of the AMDA fund for those of us that are interested in the project's success?

Thanks,
Lee

 

[Anonymous]

dbl post

 

[Anonymous]

I'll await the update we get from tonights AMDA BOD meeting.

 

[jamesw]

Likewise. I too will be interested to hear of the update after tonight's BOD meeting. Keep us in the loop please!

Cheers
James