Ethical collection, sustainability and MPAs

[Anonymous]

I posted these questions on the REEForm thread, but realized that they would be better addressed in a new topic. I hate to cause topic drift.

Here are some questions to ponder.

1) Aren't the necessity of local MPA's a capitulation that locallized collection is not sustainable? [It seems to me that if collection pressures were appropriate so as to not despeciate an area MPAs would never be needed.]

2) Is local despeciation ever ethical? If so, at what geographical scale? Per reef? Per island? Per square km?

3) If collecting pressure, even via "ethical net collection technique", were shown not to be sustainable wouldn't quota's or an outright collection ban be a totally rational response?

4) Does only sustainable collection, with good handing practices after the time of collection = ethical collection?

Cheers,
-Lee

 

[mkirda]

1) Aren't the necessity of local MPA's a capitulation that locallized collection is not sustainable? [It seems to me that if collection pressures were appropriate so as to not despeciate an area MPAs would never be needed.]

Yes and no.

On land, we have set aside the equivalent- They are called 'National Forests' and 'State Parks', etc. They are areas in which we have (mostly) tried to protect the wilderness.

As I see it, MPAs are set up for one of two reasons:
1) To set aside areas that are still pristine or near pristine, or constitute areas of importance. (i.e. Spawning grounds)
2) To set aside an area to allow for rehabilitation.

2) Is local despeciation ever ethical? If so, at what geographical scale? Per reef? Per island? Per square km?

Yes, of course. We cannot allow lions and tigers roaming the streets attacking and eating people.

In a marine environment, this is harder to define. With many species congregating and moving, localized despeciation could amount to just ranging species. I guess it depends on the timescale involved too.

In the marine environment, I would argue that it is less often ethical to despeciate if the cause is human. To a certain degree, it will depend on the species- If I could figure out a way to despeciate the Great Lakes of these annoying round head gobies, I'd do so. They are invasive.

For other species and your other questions, I would have to answer that "It depends.", however unsatisfying this answer is...

3) If collecting pressure, even via "ethical net collection technique", were shown not to be sustainable wouldn't quota's or an outright collection ban be a totally rational response?

Yes. To bring it more home for people, areas like the Georgian Banks should be left alone for a decade or two or five, then evaluated. Cod may never come back, even over 50 years of non-collection.

However, where this differs from collection areas in the Philippines is that the US had great data showing what was happening to the standing stocks of cod, and the facts were ignored. It was due to irrational political calculations. In the Philippines, the data in most areas has never been collected, so they have no idea how bad things may (or may not) be.

4) Does only sustainable collection, with good handing practices after the time of collection = ethical collection?

Without the benefit of my morning caffeine, at first blush, this would seem appropriate. Ethics can be viewpoint or culturally based, however. They are never quite as clearcut, blank and white as we might think at first.

i.e. If an area is being over-collected and there is a ban put in place, but no jobs for the displaced fishermen, so they and their families begin starving, is it ethical to throw them in jail if they go fishing for food? Or is it more ethical to let them starve to death?

With that bright and happy morning thought, I leave you. :wink:

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[blue hula3]

Lee, some thoughts on your questions ...

1) Aren't the necessity of local MPA's a capitulation that locallized collection is not sustainable? [It seems to me that if collection pressures were appropriate so as to not despeciate an area MPAs would never be needed.]

I think of MPAs as a kind of insurance. Estimating appropriate levels of exploitation can be pretty tough - 75% of the world's fisheries are considered to be overexploited or in decline (www.fao.org) ... fisheries science is well ... imprecise even when you have heaps of money to throw at it ... let alone a multispecies fishery in a developing country. So I think you hedge your bets and do two things: (1) establish MPAs that can buffer you against the uncertainty of the real world and (2) collect data on wild abundance, catch and effort so you can start to assess where you're at.

One of the reasons I have been asking [hounding?] John B and MAC about whether they have actually done the resource assessments is because it is so central to ensuring sustainability. Likewise, the adequacy of the preexisting MPA at Batasan needs to be assessed.

As an aside, I would like to see MPAs in areas even where resources are in good shape (now) because ... pretty hard to predict what is around the corner ... particularly as populations grow and pressure on resources increases.

2) Is local despeciation ever ethical? If so, at what geographical scale? Per reef? Per island? Per square km?

Personally, I tend to think of species loss from an ecological point of view rather than a "stamp collecting" perspective. I am uncomfortable losing species from a community because we have so little information about the ecological importance of any given species. Having said that, not all species play a "keystone" role.

I also think it is pretty difficult to eliminate a species on the scale of individual reefs ... you still get replenishment from adjacent areas ... it is probably more of a question on the scale of 100's of kms.

3) If collecting pressure, even via "ethical net collection technique", were shown not to be sustainable wouldn't quota's or an outright collection ban be a totally rational response?

First step would be to reduce pressure rather than an outright ban. But again, in order to assess this, we need resource assessments to be done. The likelihood that some areas can not even handle "ethical" collecting also highlights the importance of alternative livelihoods to reduce the total pressure on the marine environment. It also highlights the idiocy of training demobilised combattants to be aquarium collectors. Woe are the reefs.

4) Does only sustainable collection, with good handing practices after the time of collection = ethical collection?

In my opinion, a shift to net collection is a HUGE bonus because it doesn't destroy habitat (or at least not on the same scale as cyanide and dynamite). If you destroy the habitat WHILE you are overfishing, so much the worse for recovery. If you overfish but the habitat is ok ... things come back more quickly. Daniel Pauly, one of the pioneers on subsistence fisheries, coined the phrase "Malthusian overfishing" to describe the destruction of the habitat on which the fisheries actually depend. You're pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel at that point.

Cheers,
Blue hula

 

[Anonymous]

Mike and Blue Hula,

Thank you for the thoughful and insightful replies.

...The likelihood that some areas can not even handle "ethical" collecting also highlights the importance of alternative livelihoods...

This supports my sad conclusion that perhaps the only fish that a truly ethical hobbyist can keep are those that were tank bred.

-Lee

 

[clarionreef]

Lee,
What tank bred?
The list ends w/ dotties, clowns and gobies with few...painfully few exceptions. I know. I sell em.
My goodness how I wish there were some angels, butterflies, triggers, puffers, wrasses, tangs et. etc. etc. around.
All tank raised is something...a sliver of the aquarium trade and as such hardly a substitute.
I wish it was more...[ and not marketed so vigorously to PETCO ]
Steve

 

[clarionreef]

And what do the poor fisherman do then?
Tropical fish are already the alternative to food fishing in many areas. Taking away the tropicals as well gives no answer to fisherman and villages dependant upon the sea. Shall they eat cake? Scrape the reef harder?
Whats wrong with supporting sustainable collecting and net collecting?
You sound so much like a supporter of the reform movement Lee. Not the 'abandon it all ' and 'give up on people trying to get it done right ' movement...
If you keep the purist extrapolations going you will of course come to the conclusion that in the planetary scheme of things...human life is unsustainable as practiced...a mere 3-4 million year blip in the ancient and ongoing saga of life on Earth.
I explained to a poor fisherman the scientists need to breed sailfin blennies [ emblemaria walkeri] at a marine institute in Mexico once. He said why...to put us out of work? Whats so advanced about that?
No...he did it for grant money, I explained. He got paid, got kudus in a journal, did a powerpoint demonstration at a conference and applied for more grants based on it.
And us? He asked. Well Rudolfo. Hes a marine biologist. He doesn't think about you. He needs to justify replacing you and leave the pretty world for tourists. Thats what the elite in his world believe is a good thing. Its a newfound isolationist theory of environmentalism that has no use for the poor.
Hes just a biologist and finds you inconvenient. He has no answer for you and wishes you would go away.
Steve
PS. The sailfin blenny was recently banned so that the millions of them in Baja would serve as the private research reserve of one arrogant lab biologist in Mexico...who only needs a few dozen.
There are thousands of fisherman who will not go quietly into the nite. All aquacultured fishes? Heaven forbid!

 

[Anonymous]

Steve,

I've visitied the ORA, C-Quest, TMC, etc. websites. I have an idea of just how few tank bred species are commercially available. It has no bearing on the ethics of the situation.

If a mere "splinter" of species is all we ethical hobbyists have, then thank goodness we at least have that.

-Lee

 

[dizzy]

This supports my sad conclusion that perhaps the only fish that a truly ethical hobbyist can keep are those that were tank bred.
-Lee

Lee,
For the sake of the fisherfolk, I have to feel that it is a good thing that some of us are not quite as ethical as you and Wayne. IMO this setting ourselves up as judge and jury as to what is ethical and what is not, is a pretty slippery slope.

 

[Anonymous]

cortez marine wrote:

Lee,
What tank bred?
The list ends w/ dotties, clowns and gobies with few...painfully few exceptions. I know. I sell em.
My goodness how I wish there were some angels, butterflies, triggers, puffers, wrasses, tangs et. etc. etc. around.
All tank raised is something...a sliver of the aquarium trade and as such hardly a substitute.
I wish it was more...[ and not marketed so vigorously to PETCO ]

so- are you saying here that a) you wish there were more t/r species available?

b)that mass marketing of t/r species to the large chain stores is a bad thing? (why?)

and...

And what do the poor fisherman do then?
Tropical fish are already the alternative to food fishing in many areas. Taking away the tropicals as well gives no answer to fisherman and villages dependant upon the sea. Shall they eat cake? Scrape the reef harder?
Whats wrong with supporting sustainable collecting and net collecting?
You sound so much like a supporter of the reform movement Lee. Not the 'abandon it all ' and 'give up on people trying to get it done right ' movement...
If you keep the purist extrapolations going you will of course come to the conclusion that in the planetary scheme of things...human life is unsustainable as practiced...a mere 3-4 million year blip in the ancient and ongoing saga of life on Earth.
I explained to a poor fisherman the scientists need to breed sailfin blennies [ emblemaria walkeri] at a marine institute in Mexico once. He said why...to put us out of work? Whats so advanced about that?
No...he did it for grant money, I explained. He got paid, got kudus in a journal, did a powerpoint demonstration at a conference and applied for more grants based on it.
And us? He asked. Well Rudolfo. Hes a marine biologist. He doesn't think about you. He needs to justify replacing you and leave the pretty world for tourists. Thats what the elite in his world believe is a good thing. Its a newfound isolationist theory of environmentalism that has no use for the poor.
Hes just a biologist and finds you inconvenient. He has no answer for you and wishes you would go away. Steve
PS. The sailfin blenny was recently banned so that the millions of them in Baja would serve as the private research reserve of one arrogant lab biologist in Mexico...who only needs a few dozen.
There are thousands of fisherman who will not go quietly into the nite. All aquacultured fishes? Heaven forbid!

do you honestly think that researchers are motivated by a hatred for poor collectors-in the pursuit of their research?!!!!!! 8O

pardon me for sayin' so, steve,

but your comments point out(to me at least) a very dangerous and extreme type of fanatically oriented sensationalistic p.o.v.

i.e.- all the poor collectors are good, and the rest of the civilized world is bad, evil and motivated by the desire to screw up poor fisherman-icluding the poor schmo phd student/researcher 8O

imo- the folks that are working towards t/r aquacultured species, and researchers, are not evil, nor are they the 'enemies' of the fish collectors you seem to be stateing they are :roll:

 

[clarionreef]

Lee,
Is the alternative to a thousand boxes of cyanide fish 10 boxes of tank raised? Talk about fighting forest fires with cups of water!
No middle ground? All or nothing? Netcaught not an option?
Well...why stop with the little tropical fish penchant for purity?
Eat meat? =deforestation
drive a car?=pollution
eat bananas?= siltation
drink coffee?= exploitation
use nickel & copper coins? =mining effluent
use computers?=abs,plastics landfill
eat shrimp?=scrape the ocean floor clean
eat fish?=don't then...
We need supporters...not isolationists...Comon back Lee.
I'm much more radical than you but even I relize we can't live without stepping on flowers at times. We can do better...but not by giving up.
Steve

 

[clarionreef]

You got a good point the Vitz,
Giving Petco something domestically engineered to kill [ almost all ocellaris clowns] is better than feeding them thousands of fish from the wild that they surely would.
But...newsflash...they kill thousands of wild fish and cyanide fish mixed in with the clowns anyway...

Steve
Don't get me wrong...
T.R. FISH are fine...its the 'be all ...end all panacea' myth for the dirty industry that I object to. Offering a penny to replace a dollar is not quite a serious strategy....maybe one day. In the meanwhile...

 

[clarionreef]

Shoot from the lip Vitz!
I didn't say evil but I gave another view of the unexamined sacred cow that has become the tank raised story.
All aquacultured this or that is not inherently good or bad. Surely thats not to hard to understand?
The aloofness and arrogance of some lab folks is a given...and the ignorance, and obliviousness to village folks that characterize many likewise. The hard sciences do not often teach good social skills.
The assumption that all wild fishing is bad and needs to be replaced by labcoats on white horses is what my true story objects to and illustrates.
I didn't speak in absolutes and hyperbole indicative of a 'dangerous mindset' as you did.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

And us? He asked. Well Rudolfo. Hes a marine biologist. He doesn't think about you. He needs to justify replacing you and leave the pretty world for tourists. Thats what the elite in his world believe is a good thing. Its a newfound isolationist theory of environmentalism that has no use for the poor.
Hes just a biologist and finds you inconvenient. He has no answer for you and wishes you would go away.
Steve

:roll:

<sigh>

 

[clarionreef]

Very definite characters in mind Vitz...
Any chance you know them?
Steve
ps.They are not all and did not speak for all...but in Mexico, the disdain for village people by their elite has to be seen to be believed.

 

[Anonymous]

Very definite characters in mind Vitz...
Any chance you know them? Steve
ps.They are not all and did not speak for all...but in Mexico, the disdain for village people by their elite has to be seen to be believed.

:?: :?: :?:

any chance you could just say what you have to say and stop speaking in riddle-ese?

pretty please? :?

 

[blue hula3]

...The likelihood that some areas can not even handle "ethical" collecting also highlights the importance of alternative livelihoods...

This supports my sad conclusion that perhaps the only fish that a truly ethical hobbyist can keep are those that were tank bred.

Lee, I said some areas not all areas. IMO, an ethical hobbyist can buy fish that have been collected with non destructive techniques and at a level that does not lead to unacceptable declines in wild populations(resource assessments anyone ... John B are you out there?)

The problem with the aquarium fishery (one of them anyway) is that fishing effort in places like the Philippines is too high relative to what the resource base can sustain. You respond to this by reducing effort to acceptable levels rather than banning the trade. And complementary to this is the establishment of alternative livelihoods to ensure that displaced fishers can still earn a living (in Canada, it is simple - they just go on unemployment insurance; no such luxury in the Phils).

From a sustainability point of view, a well managed aquarium fishery makes sense. The higher the value of the fishery, the less fish need to be removed for someone to earn a living and the easier it is to sustain ecologically. I would rather see someone remove 10 kg of aquarium fish from the reef at $200 / kg than 10,000 kg of australian salmon at $0.20/kg for cat food. (numbers fictitious but you get my point) ...

The issue of sourcing is why it is so important that certification truly means that the fish come from well managed collection grounds.

Cheers, blue hula

 

[blue hula3]

do you honestly think that researchers are motivated by a hatred for poor collectors-in the pursuit of their research?!!!!!! 8O

pardon me for sayin' so, steve,

but your comments point out(to me at least) a very dangerous and extreme type of fanatically oriented sensationalistic p.o.v.

i.e.- all the poor collectors are good, and the rest of the civilized world is bad, evil and motivated by the desire to screw up poor fisherman-icluding the poor schmo phd student/researcher 8O

Vitz,

As a researcher myself, I feel comfortable generalising that researchers are not motivated by hatred for the poor. And there are some extremely committed scientists out there.

However, there are also those that are ambivalent, indifferent, politically naieve, anally retentive about their research etc. This is why people crack jokes about the "ivory tower".

It is also true that, as science becomes more competitive (more scientists trained, fewer grants per person), the pressure to publish (or you know ... perish) heightens and compassion and curiosity become constrained. Efficiency becomes essential in pumping out those papers and expediency creeps in. The poor are not generally expedient.

imo- the folks that are working towards t/r aquacultured species, and researchers, are not evil, nor are they the 'enemies' of the fish collectors you seem to be stateing they are :roll:

Here you are dead wrong Vitz .... folks working towards t/r aquacultured species are the natural enemies of fish collectors in developing countries. Or rather, they perceive these collectors as their enemies. The best way to keep cultured fish at the profit margins is to ensure a steady supply of cheap fish from the Phils and Indo. While at the moment the diversity of wild caught fish carries cultured fish (the hobby would shrink drastically if all you could get were clowns, dotties, gobies and banggais) ... "folks" producing tank breds would prefer to have to compete only with the relatively expensive wild caught fish from countries like Australia. And as more species are cracked ... pressure will mount from the culturing side of the industry to reduce imports or selectively allow only those species in that are not being cultured ... all on conservation grounds no less and to hell with the fishers.

Blue hula

 

[blue hula3]

Very definite characters in mind Vitz...
Any chance you know them? Steve
ps.They are not all and did not speak for all...but in Mexico, the disdain for village people by their elite has to be seen to be believed.

:?: :?: :?:

any chance you could just say what you have to say and stop speaking in riddle-ese?

pretty please? :?

I believe the riddle-ese was a reasonably humorous way of suggesting that you are making overly emphatic statements about things with which you have little direct experience.

Blue hula

 

[dizzy]

vitz, Lee,
I'm going to speak to you as a small time fish breeder. We have now successfully reared A percula, A ocellaris, A frenatus, and P kauderni. I also have two pair of goldstripe maroons that just started spawning. In addition we also have several other species of clowns and several pair of psuedos set up. Does breeding these fish in hopes that we will be able to make a profit, make me more ethical than a poor collector who uses nets? If it does I guess I should be pretty proud of myself.

I don't see the large commercial hatcheries inviting people into their facilites, so they can learn how to culture fish and take pressure off the reefs. If cultured fish are ever to replace wild caught, the effort will be made because of financial gain and not for moral reasons. I believe Steve is correct when he suggests the connected will use political influence, to take fishing away from the poor and give culturing to the rich, if it ever becomes profitable.

 

[blue hula3]

the connected will use political influence, to take fishing away from the poor and give culturing to the rich, if it ever becomes profitable.

I'll second that. The robber barons are always with us.