Hello everyone,
The AMDA was founded in 1995 in response to a growing awareness that certain aspects of wild harvest of marine fish, invertebrates and live rock for home aquariums might be having detrimental effects on coral reef habitats. Believing that we do that conserving the resources that provide over 90% of the live specimens from which we derive our livelihood is essential to the future of our industry, our goal is to reduce, and eventually eliminate, negative environmental impacts that could result from our collective business activities.
So said John Tullock, founder of the American Marinelife Dealers Association some years back.
It was and is still the noblest of goals...to reduce, and eventually eliminate, negative environmental impacts that result from our collective business activities.
This I take to be the AMDA mission above all else. Unless serious progress is made and made this year, what indeed is the point?
I am now the president elect of AMDA and I'd like to say from the outset that I have no interest whatsoever in wasting time, squandering time and resources and more importantly, squandering idealistic and intellectual resources. I see AMDA in a very different way than many and regard it as my duty to make it work. It may at first seem arrogant for an American based association to think it may effect fundamental change in the way marinelife is collected, handled and processed from other countries, especially the exasperating tandem of Indonesia and the Philippines..."you can't live with em and you can't live without em", it seems.
It is exactly they who produce the great majority of the trades livestock, whose collecting practices have threatened the legitimacy of the marinelife industry and have brought it much ill repute.
A rag tag collection of service people and retailers propose to challenge the way things are done? Really? How did this go in years past? Was a single coral head saved? Perhaps...and then again perhaps the achievement was negated by the killing of a hundred more this morning in the Philippines.
A fisherman in The Philippines told me years ago that if you really wanted to solve the problem, bring the fish collector "something good enough to steal." In other words...instead of trying to ram down his throat our Western notions of what should be done to make us sleep easier and fix our problems, we should instead be focusing on what makes the diver tick. What will work with him, what does he want, what will he respond to?
Well, I spent years working in villages and talking to, dealing with, eating with, making nets with, collecting, packing and taking the 9 hour bus to Manila with...staying up late at night hearing of their dreams...playing with their children etc. etc. These are the things that can link you with success in the search for effectiveness. They are the missing ingredient, the critical component...and the most glaring omission in the past decade of nonperformance in fisherman's training's by groups of no training themselves.
I am acutely aware of my history as an irritant in the games plans of business type, eco type, city based organizations. Despite offers to sell out to them, I could never of course deliver. Some of these groups have had the answer in their hands and squandered the opportunity...the divers could've been listened to, learned from, talked to and not down to. But as a rule it seems, city folks have hearing defects when it comes to listening to village people, foolishly mistaking poverty for being unintelligent. I have I believe, long represented the formula and the solution of what works best to truly convert cyanide fisherman and have tried in vain to convert administrators, directors and coral reef politicians [ yes, this new occupation now exists ].
Finally, as the head of a Democratic and relevant to the issue organization, I no longer have to try and convince out of touch, village biased, non aquarium savvy people. Finally I can address the concerns and offer the solutions, the formulas and the secret netting supply [ hidden in plain sight for a decade yet ignored for lack of conscientiousness on the issue]
to the world. More and more will be revealed as we go forward this year. There is so much work to do and I think AMDA can become a lightning rod for dynamic and revolutionary change for engineering a more sustainable industry.
We can make John Tullock happy for starting an outfit that really made a difference and we can make ourselves proud for changing an industry that reformed itself from within.
Send in your memberships, check out amdareef.com and participate in our dynamic on line Democracy that caused no small stir this past year.
If we who know the trade best don't do it who will? Join us!
Steve Robinson
President, AMDA
The AMDA was founded in 1995 in response to a growing awareness that certain aspects of wild harvest of marine fish, invertebrates and live rock for home aquariums might be having detrimental effects on coral reef habitats. Believing that we do that conserving the resources that provide over 90% of the live specimens from which we derive our livelihood is essential to the future of our industry, our goal is to reduce, and eventually eliminate, negative environmental impacts that could result from our collective business activities.
So said John Tullock, founder of the American Marinelife Dealers Association some years back.
It was and is still the noblest of goals...to reduce, and eventually eliminate, negative environmental impacts that result from our collective business activities.
This I take to be the AMDA mission above all else. Unless serious progress is made and made this year, what indeed is the point?
I am now the president elect of AMDA and I'd like to say from the outset that I have no interest whatsoever in wasting time, squandering time and resources and more importantly, squandering idealistic and intellectual resources. I see AMDA in a very different way than many and regard it as my duty to make it work. It may at first seem arrogant for an American based association to think it may effect fundamental change in the way marinelife is collected, handled and processed from other countries, especially the exasperating tandem of Indonesia and the Philippines..."you can't live with em and you can't live without em", it seems.
It is exactly they who produce the great majority of the trades livestock, whose collecting practices have threatened the legitimacy of the marinelife industry and have brought it much ill repute.
A rag tag collection of service people and retailers propose to challenge the way things are done? Really? How did this go in years past? Was a single coral head saved? Perhaps...and then again perhaps the achievement was negated by the killing of a hundred more this morning in the Philippines.
A fisherman in The Philippines told me years ago that if you really wanted to solve the problem, bring the fish collector "something good enough to steal." In other words...instead of trying to ram down his throat our Western notions of what should be done to make us sleep easier and fix our problems, we should instead be focusing on what makes the diver tick. What will work with him, what does he want, what will he respond to?
Well, I spent years working in villages and talking to, dealing with, eating with, making nets with, collecting, packing and taking the 9 hour bus to Manila with...staying up late at night hearing of their dreams...playing with their children etc. etc. These are the things that can link you with success in the search for effectiveness. They are the missing ingredient, the critical component...and the most glaring omission in the past decade of nonperformance in fisherman's training's by groups of no training themselves.
I am acutely aware of my history as an irritant in the games plans of business type, eco type, city based organizations. Despite offers to sell out to them, I could never of course deliver. Some of these groups have had the answer in their hands and squandered the opportunity...the divers could've been listened to, learned from, talked to and not down to. But as a rule it seems, city folks have hearing defects when it comes to listening to village people, foolishly mistaking poverty for being unintelligent. I have I believe, long represented the formula and the solution of what works best to truly convert cyanide fisherman and have tried in vain to convert administrators, directors and coral reef politicians [ yes, this new occupation now exists ].
Finally, as the head of a Democratic and relevant to the issue organization, I no longer have to try and convince out of touch, village biased, non aquarium savvy people. Finally I can address the concerns and offer the solutions, the formulas and the secret netting supply [ hidden in plain sight for a decade yet ignored for lack of conscientiousness on the issue]
to the world. More and more will be revealed as we go forward this year. There is so much work to do and I think AMDA can become a lightning rod for dynamic and revolutionary change for engineering a more sustainable industry.
We can make John Tullock happy for starting an outfit that really made a difference and we can make ourselves proud for changing an industry that reformed itself from within.
Send in your memberships, check out amdareef.com and participate in our dynamic on line Democracy that caused no small stir this past year.
If we who know the trade best don't do it who will? Join us!
Steve Robinson
President, AMDA
