From the inside …….
A few people have asked me to comment on this thread and I am happy to share what I know so far.
It is true that Fiji has been shut down for an undetermined amount of time. Fiji has been given one deadline after another to get an important piece of legislation in place and for one reason or another that has had some difficulty getting to the table. The main reason is that the official in charge is completely incompetent and felt that if he just ignored the responsibility it would just go away. In fact he does not know how to work his email and when someone else from government stepped in to try and help he found over 200 messages that were unopened from C.I.T.E.S. warning him of the impending deadlines. This is no joke ….. that’s just how silly this whole thing is! It is no wonder that C.I.T.E.S. finally gave up and imposed their final deadline which was October 31, 2003.
This is not the fault of the exporters, we did our job and supplied all of the information required to set the quota and report our exports while everything was in compliance with the exception of this one piece of paper that is supposed to come from someone who can’t even spell regulation let alone communicate about one.
Amazingly enough once this person left the country on government business another person stepped in and got the job done. However, it was not done in time enough to meet the deadline but just the day before the deadline. What happens next is that today Parliament will meet to approve the legislation (reliable word has it that they will) and it will be published in the Gazette (government paper) on Friday and once C.I.T.E.S. sees this they will lift the ban. Two things can happen here to spoil this 1) Parliament may want to delay the process by asking for more time to review it, I was told that this was unlikely 2) C.I.T.E.S. could take their sweet time to lift the ban to teach Fiji a lesson, also unlikely (I hope).
If all goes well everything should be back to normal next week. A few things in some of these post I need to clear up. No, I am not in Fiji right now as was mentioned and Fiji has never been shut down yet, not even for a week as someone has suggested that it happens every year about this time.
One piece of good news is that my cultured rock is still ok to bring in and we have a very big load coming in tomorrow and this could be a very good time to finally take a look at some very nice rock, if I don’t say so myself (plug, plug).
I hope this clears up some of your questions or prevents any silly rumors from getting out of hand like I’m in a Fiji jail eating rats for the rest of my life.
Take care all and I will pray for the future of a business I have worked so hard for and the 350+ employees that have families depending on me for their daily bread. Fiji has it hard enough right now without this hitting their economy.
Cheers,
Walt
Update ……..
Thanks for kind words and concern folks. To answer a few questions and give you the latest update I have this to offer.
Last night I was able to talk with the gentleman from T.R.A.F.F.I.C. (the regul
atory branch that C.I.T.E.S. relies on for information) stationed in Fiji. He told me that the Parliament did approve the legislation and the next step was to get the paper submitted to the Solicitor General for publication into the Gazette on Friday (our Thursday) and the deadline for this is 10:00 am today. To say the least, it will be tight or it will not be Gazetted until the following Friday which means another week. However, there is one worry and that is he wasn’t very clear if his information was accurate since he got it second hand. If we are successful in getting this thing in the Gazette on Friday it will be up to C.I.T.E.S. to get it on their web site before our permits will be accepted.
Now that you have completed “Fiji Government 101” we will move on … hopefully!
Regarding other rock we still have our Tonga Kaelini rock every week and the other types of rock that come from Tonga (shelf & branch) and of course I mentioned our Fiji cultured rock is in good supply and is not affected by the ban.
As I have said many times we all need to start paying attention to what is going on with cultured stuff. I am not going to get on a soap box about destroying the reef because I still defend our activities because I know personally of our commitment to establish proper reef management and accurate monitoring programs. I know it is hard to imagine if you have never been there but the reef is a renewable resource that can be harvested in a responsible manner. The owners of the reef have a right to earn a living from one of their few valuable sources of income if properly managed and this is what we are all about. However, situations like this also allow us the time to reflect on the other alternatives. I still look forward to the day when the hobby will start to be more supportive of the aquaculture efforts that are producing very nice corals and rock but are passed by in favor of “wild caught”. In our case we have more than 70,000 pieces of coral on racks (yes 70,000) that will rival any wild caught in color, shape and size yet it is still a very insignificant part of our export. The wholesalers tell me that the stores don’t want it so they don’t stock it!!! Come on guys, talk with your stores and start creating the demand from your end. I have taken this to the next level in Fiji and have voluntarily reduced our own quota by 20% per year (in rock) in hopes that we can convince the market to start accepting aqua cultured products by then. It is these kind of situations that should remind us all how vulnerable we all are and how important this whole issue is on many levels of conservation and awareness. Please don’t accuse me of hypocritical preaching because you must realize that if it were not for our harvest (I like to say responsible harvest) in the first place none of this other stuff would be possible. Ok enough said … I hope.
Someone else asked where they could view our site. The
www.waltsmith.com site is going under major updates and renovations right now but I think the old version is still up. However,
www.pacificaquafarms.com has more up to date information on our cultured efforts and product. Even though I no longer own Pacific Aqua Farms (wholly) it still carries my name and our products and the site is full of good photos.
Take care all,
Walt
