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Anonymous

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Well, that would be all CITES animals Vitz, surely you must know that means all corals/live rock. Since most inverts and fish aren't CITES, that would mean fish and inverts may still be imported.
 
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Anonymous

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i was under the impression that some corals are not restricted if they aren't attached to rock, particularly scleractinia
 
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Anonymous

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This is true, I believe softies aren't CITES, it's there base of scleractinia. If they were on shells, they'd be none CITES. Problem is, they ship almost all their softies on a rock base, so they're considerred CITES scleractinia (live rock) and counted as such on the quotas.
 

jamesw

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Wow

I remember reading this recommendation when it came out earlier in the year. At the time they were given some time to "get their act together and get a plan in."

Looks like in the eyes of the US gov't FWS that grace period is up.

Mary, does this affect your business? Doh!

Cheers
James
 

Kalkbreath

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Yes Mary is out of action in Fiji........But was it not Walt that had a video of his collectors using crowbars{at a MACNA meeting years back} The Fijians did not turn in the proper paper work........because they did not do the impact studies........and some say thats because the results would not be good...........Too much collection on one island{one island out of 1200....like I said months back} Good thing I dont import from Fiji!
 

MaryHM

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Mary has been out of action in Fiji, Kalk. I haven't imported stock from there in about a year. And rock I could really care less about. So this basically has a zero impact on me, other than I'll have to get my customers to switch over to more expensive rock. Even if no one bought any rock from me though, it wouldn't matter. No one but retailers make any money off that stuff anyway.
 

dizzy

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I'm just wondering if anyone knows if this also prevents Walt's cultured rock and corals from coming in? Seems like David Vosseler told me that he thought it would apply to Walt's stuff too. I hope Fiji gets their sh1t together. This all seems a bit more serious than whether it will cost Mary any money or not. You can bet it will take away from the income of the poor collectors.
 
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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 regulatory 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
 

blue hula3

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Just a small clarification ... TRAFFIC is a joint initiative of WWF and IUCN ... they are not part of CITES. More of a watch dog role in some ways.
 

StevenPro

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Kalkbreath":ygpm7ilc said:
Cites website .....states that they will not even reveiw the subject until after the first of the year.....

That's smart! This way they can really protect the environment by putting the collectors out of work for the next couple of months and push them into doing something else to put food on the table. Something like working in the food fish industry or possibly sugar cane production. No damage to the reef from those industries. :wink:
 
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Anonymous

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Rob Perry Jones is the guy from T.R.A.F.F.I.C. that reports to C.I.T.E.S. that I spoke about in the other thread.
We are hoping that this will all be over soon.
Cheers,
Walt

Dear All,

As you may have heard, the Endangered and Protected Species Regulations
(2003) were approved by Cabinet on 4 November 2003.

The text and associated forms of the regulations were compiled and
signed by the Minister on 5 Nov. They were provided by the Department
of Environment to the Solicitor General's office for approval at 8am
this morning (6 Nov) before being taken by DoE to the Government Printer
with a request from the Solicitor General's office for immediate
attention.

It is anticipated that they will be published tomorrow (7 November),
but it is not possible to say just yet with absolute certainty that they
will be ready tomorrow - the matter now rests with the Government
Printer. DoE and TRAFFIC will be following up with relevant people
tomorrow and will keep you updated on progress. Once published, they
will be provided by DoE to the CITES Secretariat immediately.

I hope this addresses any questions - but you're welcome to call if you
have any further questions.

with regards,
rob

Rob Parry-Jones
TRAFFIC Oceania South Pacific Programme
 

middletonmark

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Walt -

Strangely, this may be good for some things. My [in my mind questionable] LFS here had always stocked Fiji LR ... and today when I was in had a shipment of Aquacultured Fiji arrive while I was there.

They were really impressed, no real die-off, no nasty smell ... nice shapes and sizes ... not sure how price is different there - but it may have given them an opportunity to try something they may have not [and gave me a chance to see your stuff].

Nice coralline covered, seemingly some `small life' ... but not the standard sponge/etc die-off that most LR has.

I'm hoping that it's what they stock in the future. Maybe naive of me ... but it was nice to think that this whole mess may have `turned them on' to the fact that the aquacultured probably ships better, may cure/stabilize faster.

And nice product, BTW.

mark
 
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Anonymous

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Cites website .....states that they will not even reveiw the subject until after the first of the year.....
Guess there was a time warp huh? this from the CITES website:

Withdrawal of recommendation to suspend trade with Fiji
In Notification to the Parties No. 2003/065 of 31 October 2003, the Secretariat advised Parties that the recommendation of the Conference of the Parties that all Parties refuse any import from or export or re-export to Fiji of specimens of CITES-listed species was renewed and provided the explanation for this.
On 7 November 2003, Fiji gazetted its Endangered and Protected Species Regulations (2003). The Secretariat received a copy of the regulations the same day and has determined that Fiji now has adequate legislation for implementing the Convention.
On 12 November 2003, Fiji provided final details of its coral export quotas. The Secretariat has verified these quotas and published them on this website.
Accordingly, the recommendation to suspend trade with Fiji is definitively withdrawn.
 

jamesw

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Wow, that was fast. Funny how a little "mule kick" can get people off their butts... when they had years and did nothing.

Cheers
James
 

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