only 5% of sold fish are cyanide collected.

[PeterIMA]

Mike, I agree that what Kalk is emitting is mostly smoke and that it stinks.

Peter

 

[Kalkbreath]

Then dispute the data.....Peter, How many pounds of fish do Filipinos eat each year. And where do those fish come from? More importantly where did those fish come from in the 1960 and 70s? When there were almost zero aquaculture and zero imports? You know , the same time the reefs disappeared? On this board you claimed that cyanide food fishermen dont use more tablets in their squirt bottles then hobby collectors ......but in your testimony you claimed otherwise. If there are fifty times more fish collected by live seafood collectors each day and each food fish is collected with a higher cyanide dose , Then that supports my idea that live food fish collection so far out paces ornamental collection that it would be impossible to even notice any MO damage.{kinda like peeing in the rain} And more importantly, that during the time when 75% of the reefs in PI disappeared......cyanide and blast fishing out paced MO collection 5000 to one . Yet you have spent the last ten years preaching the opposite. Why?

 

[Anonymous]

Then dispute the data.....Peter, How many pounds of fish do Filipinos eat each year. And where do those fish come from? More importantly where did those fish come from in the 1960 and 70s? When there were almost zero aquaculture and zero imports? You know , the same time the reefs disappeared? On this board you claimed that cyanide food fishermen dont use more tablets in their squirt bottles then hobby collectors ......but in your testimony you claimed otherwise. If there are fifty times more fish collected by live seafood collectors each day and each food fish is collected with a higher cyanide dose , Then that supports my idea that live food fish collection so far out paces ornamental collection that it would be impossible to even notice any MO damage.{kinda like peeing in the rain} And more importantly, that during the time when 75% of the reefs in PI disappeared......cyanide and blast fishing out paced MO collection 5000 to one . Yet you have spent the last ten years preaching the opposite. Why?

er- your data has for the most part, not only been disputed, but disproven, time and time again, but your never acknowledge the disprovement, so why even bother? :roll:

 

[JennM]

I think this thread is going to set a record for bloviating.

Jenn

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, Everything in your last posting is a deliberate lie.

Peter

 

[PeterIMA]

The per capita consumption of fish in PI was 41 kg/year in 1984. Fish are caught almost everywhere, many come from areas where there are no coral reefs. I don't have a breakdown on what proportion of the landings are coral reef related. I will look at BFAR reports to see whether I can find it. Tuna is a significant part of the fishery. Tuna are caught in the Sulu Sea in the SW PI and off of southern and SW Mindanao. You claim there was no aquaculture in the 1960s and 1970s. This is false. There always was a lot of aquaculture for species like milkfish even then. The study by Gomez conducted in the late 1970s did indicate significant reef degredation. Gomez et al. (1981) found that out of 559 stations surveyed, the results were 31.8% poor, 38.8% fair, 23.7% good, and 5.7% excellent. In my paper published in 1988 (in Environmental Biology of Fishes) I discussed all aspects of destructive fishing including blast fishing, muro-ami, kayakas fishing, illegal trawling (baby trawls) inshore, and cyanide fishing (by both the MO collectors and food fishermen). So, I never claimed that this was all due to cyanide, or that the food fishery was more destructive in terms of cyanide use than the MO fishery. In my Cyanide-free Net-caught paper I stated that MO fishermen generally use 1-2 cyanide tablets and that food fishermen generally use 3-5 cyanide tablets per squirt bottle. I also stated that it was believed there were about 4,000 MO fish collectors. It is not known how many food fishermen there are in PI. McAllister (1988) estimated that 1000 collectors (each using 75 kg of sodium cyanide per year) used a total of 75,000 kg, and that about the same amount was used in the live food fish trade. Hence, McAllister (Galaxea paper published in 1988) estimated that 150,000 kg of sodium cyanide was spread on Philippine coral reefs each year. A study by Robinson (1986) (the BFAR memo) found that 10 vessels used cyanide to capture food fish (mostly groupers) off the Island of Palawan. Each vessel was estimated to use 1250 kg of cyanide every two weeks. Hence, 4000 aquarium-fish collectors (Anonymous 1998) may use as much as 300,000 kg of sodium cyanide per year, while ten food fishing vessels fishing 35 weeks per year would use 218,750 kg. Hence, the total amount of sodium cyanide presently used in the Philippines might exceed 500,000 kg per year. However, the latter estimate does not compensate for the decline in cyanide usage in recent years, indicted by cyanide testing indicated later in the paper by Rubec et al. (2001). The trend presented indicated that the % of MO fish with cyanide present had declined from 43% in 1996, to 41% in 1997, to 18% in 1998.
"On this board you (peter rubec) claimed that cyanide food fishermen don't use more cyanide in their squirt bottles than hobby collectors".
-This is a totally false statemen, show us the posting

Without knowing how many food fishermen are using cyanide or what species are targeted with cyanide it is not correct to assume that the food fishermen use more cyanide than the MO collectors.

At the time that the reefs were declining (lets say the late 1960s and during the 1970s) blast fishing and MO cyanide fishing was occurring. There was no fishery using cyanide for food fish in PI prior to 1975 (Robinson memo). Hence, your assumption that the destruction was due to food fishing with cyanide in the 60s and early 70s is false. There is a better case for ascribing it to blast fishing and MO collectors using cyanide (as I discussed in my 1988 paper). So your last statement about food fishing with cyanide being 5000 times higher than MO collection using cyanide in the early 1970s is totally false.

Your assumption (not backed with data) is that there is 50 times more food fish caught that MO fish (presumably on a total weight basis). This may be true, but it falsely assumes that all of the food fishes were caught with cyanide.

 

[mkirda]

Kalk, Everything in your last posting is a deliberate lie.
Peter

It's just Whack-a-mole...

Despite the fact that we have disproved the assumption that the argument is based on, he still uses the same argument that has been disproven. This is the same argument where I used the analogy earlier about averages of gas mileage. By Kalk's Logic, because the national fleet average is 25 mpg, the Lamborgini Diablo and the Toyota Prius will get the same gas mileage - 25 mpg. It is patently false.

I'm still wondering where the evidence is that Steve testified before Congress... Or where (or when) you testified a second time and gave different testimony than what I posted. Kalk has made these claims, has been shown to be wrong, has claimed further that what was posted wasn't what was actually said, but has failed to provide a shred of evidence to the contrary. Given that this same behavior has been exhibited by Kalk on numerous occasions, I think it best not to even bother replying to him any more. It just gives him a soapbox to stand on.

Stop playing Whack-a-mole.
It is the best solution.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[clarionreef]

Agreed Mike,
The credibility of the 'witness' has been proven to be very low indeed.
In any proper venue he would be dismissed as incompetent testimony.
Only in Monty Pythons argument clinic skit is such behavior acceptable...as humor.
The damage is that it drains, diverts. waters down and hijacks better posts and more useful concerns.
Hes lucky this ain't Survivor.
We'd just vote him off the island.
Steve

 

[Kalkbreath]

The per capita consumption of fish in PI was 41 kg/year in 1984. Fish are caught almost everywhere, many come from areas where there are no coral reefs. I don't have a breakdown on what proportion of the landings are coral reef related. I will look at BFAR reports to see whether I can find it. Tuna is a significant part of the fishery. Tuna are caught in the Sulu Sea in the SW PI and off of southern and SW Mindanao. You claim there was no aquaculture in the 1960s and 1970s. This is false. There always was a lot of aquaculture for species like milkfish even then. The study by Gomez conducted in the late 1970s did indicate significant reef degredation. Gomez et al. (1981) found that out of 559 stations surveyed, the results were 31.8% poor, 38.8% fair, 23.7% good, and 5.7% excellent. In my paper published in 1988 (in Environmental Biology of Fishes) I discussed all aspects of destructive fishing including blast fishing, muro-ami, kayakas fishing, illegal trawling (baby trawls) inshore, and cyanide fishing (by both the MO collectors and food fishermen). So, I never claimed that this was all due to cyanide, or that the food fishery was more destructive in terms of cyanide use than the MO fishery.

So then I am correct! How many pounds does 41 kilograms convert to? And how many pounds of fish per kilometer square would that be? Well, one third of the fish for export come from the municipal reefs area http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/PHL/profile.htm That means because the only free fish are from the reefs not from commercial collectors .....that most Philippinos collected their own fish back in the 1960s. And At least one third of five TRILLION pounds came from the reefs. The ocean’s resources alone provide the world with more protein than beef, chicken, or pork (Dayton, 1995). This is especially true for the Philippines where fish accounts for more than 50% of protein intake (Hunt, 1996).50% of the families are below the poverty line, fishing the Lingayen Gulf serves as the only means of survival (Paw, 1991). The lack of alternative livelihood has forced many to move to the coastal areas. As the number of fishers increases, the catch per unit effort decreases. This has led many Filipino fishers to use destructive fishing methods, such as cyanide poisoning, fish blasting, and trawlers. Trawlers are used by most commercial fisheries because of the large yields they produce. . The poor economy and lack of alternative livelihood has led many Filipinos to resort to fishing. The increasing population puts a demand on the natural resources, and environmental problems develop. According to Dayton (1995), "fishing typically does not require land ownership and because it remains, in general, open to all, it is often the employer of last resort in the developing world- an occupation when there are no other options." "Overall, the fishfolk population has been increasing since the 1950’s resulting in very high fisherman and boat density. The gulf is currently experiencing biological overfishing due to excessive fishing efforts which have been noted in the mid 1970s" (Paw, 1991).

In my Cyanide-free Net-caught paper I stated that MO fishermen generally use 1-2 cyanide tablets and that food fishermen geerally use 3-5 cyanide tablets in squirt bottles. I also stated that it was believed there were about 4,000 MO fish collectors. It is not known how many food fishermen there are in PI.

BUT what is known is how many fish are being extracted, thus we can compare fish to fish collection, If one third of 4 trillion pounds is being collected from the reefs for self use fish consumption. And most of that is with blast fishing and cyanide......then a fair comparison would be 1.5 trillion pounds to our hobbys 700,000 tiny reef fish. How many pounds do 700,000 damsels and clownfish weigh?

A study by Robinson (1986) (the BFAR memo) found that 10 vessels used cyanide to capture food fish (mostly groupers) off the Island of Palawan. Each vessel was estimated to use 1250 kg of cyanide every two weeks. Hence, 4000 aquarium-fish collectors (Anonymous 1998) may use as much as 300,000 kg of sodium cyanide per year, while ten food fishing vessels fishing 35 weeks per year would use 218,750 kg. Hence, the total amount of sodium cyanide presently used in the Philippines might exceed 500,000 kg per year.

But What does your TEN food fishing boats represent? Do you think ten boats collect 1.5 trillion pounds of fish? You are staying away from comparing fish to fish and using per boat examples. Why did you not mention the little issue of there being sightly more then ten boats fishing the waters of PI yet you listed all 4000 MO collectors?

However, the latter estimate does not compensate for the decline in cyanide usage in recent years, indicted by cyanide testing indicated later in the paper by Rubec et al. (2001). The trend presented indicated that the % of MO fish with cyanide present had declined from 43% in 1996, to 41% in 1997, to 18% in 1998.

You forgot 1999 and more importantly 2000 and that food fish collection with cyanide did not decrease nearly as much as MO

Without knowing how many food fishermen are using cyanide or what species are targeted with cyanide it is not correct to assume that the food fishermen use more cyanide than the MO collectors.

At the time that the reefs were declining (lets say the late 1960s and during the 1970s blast fishing and MO cyanide fishing was occurring. There was no fishery using cyanide for food fish in PI prior to 1975 (Robinson memo). Hence, your assumption that the destruction was due to cyanide food fishing is false.There is a better case for ascribing it to blast fishing and MO collectors using cyanide (as I discussed in my 1988 paper). So your last statement about food fishing with cyanide being 5000 times higher than MO collection using cyanide in the early 1970s is totally false.

Fish collection for food did not decrease even after the blastfishing ban .......just because Steve thinks the Philippinos did not use cyanide for food collection prior to 1975 does not mean it was not occurring. It was not until the late seventies that a market for live food fish began to increase. But if you think starving Natives did not understand the ability for cyanide to collect a lot of fish quickly after watching MO collectors use it .....your dreaming. {And Mr Robert Goldstein offered more then enough evidence that cyanide fishing for self use began long before live food fish exporters started using it.

Your assumption (not backed with data) is that there is 50 times more food fish caught that MO fish (presumably on a total weight basis). This may be true, but it falsely assumes that all of the food fishes were caught with cyanide.

NO it assumes that both industries used cyanide at the rates YOUR data showed . Did your data not show that food fish contained a higher cyanide rate? And Actually I am only using the live food fish export data for this 50 to one ratio.{not including the thrillions of punds of cyanide collelcted self use food fish........ As a man who has been speaking on the issue for twenty years ......just how many live fish were collected for food in the 1970s through present? How many live food fish compared to MO fish ? FIFTY TO ONE

 

[Kalkbreath]

Agreed Mike,
The credibility of the 'witness' has been proven to be very low indeed.
In any proper venue he would be dismissed as incompetent testimony.
Only in Monty Pythons argument clinic skit is such behavior acceptable...as humor.
The damage is that it drains, diverts. waters down and hijacks better posts and more useful concerns.
Hes lucky this ain't Survivor.
We'd just vote him off the island.
Steve

Hey Steve , remember when you wrote in your book that 80% of cyanide fish die along the route from collection to retailer?

A large proportion (perhaps more than 80%) of the stunned fish, that survive the initial
exposure to cyanide, die later throughout the chain from reef to retailer (Rubec 1986, Appendix 1).

As soon as I am done with Peter, I take up the 5% cyanide issue with you. :wink:

 

[clarionreef]

There you go AGAIN!
My book?
Where are the residuals?
Did it sell?
I never wrote a book!
How can you be wrong about so many things more then the law of averages!
Steve

 

[Kalkbreath]

Then you admit that Peter quoted some thing you said off the cuff.....not anything you wrote in a published paper? I also noticed he likes to quote(Anonymous 1998) as well. Was that you as well? How many other quotes were from something you said over a bar drink? This is not the first time someone has questioned the sources you and Peter use as fact.Remember Mr Goldstein ? He also had some questions :wink:

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, Lets see where we can agree and where we don't agree.

I quoted a consumption of 41 kg of fish consumed per capita per year in PI in 1984. That is equivalent to 90.2 pounds (US pound not British) per year (since 1kg=2.2 lbs).

Another estimate published by White and Cruz-Trinidad (1998) was that in 1993 the per capita consumption of protein in PI was 54 kg per year of which 67% was fish and fish products. Hence, the per capita consumption of fish was 36.2 kg per year in 1993. This is equivalent to 79.6 lbs per person per year. This is higher than your estimate of 70 lbs per person per year. Please cite your information source and the year.

You stated that there were 27,000 sq kilometers of coral reef (you also stated it was 25,000 sq kilometers). Which is correct? My 1988 paper cited remote sensing studies that estimated the area of coral reefs as 33,000 sq. km (the area within the 20 fathom depth contour). In the same paper I stated that the area with hard substrates within the 20 fathom depth contour may be 27,000 sq km based on Murdy and Ferraris (1980), and Silvestre and Ganadan (1987). Lets go with 27,000 sq. km as the total area. The 27,000 number is accepted by Dr. Alan White in his USAID publication (White and Cruz-Trinidad 1998-The Values of Philippine Coastal Resources Why Protection and Management Are Critical). I want the citation for where you obtained your estimates.

You estimated there were 70 million Filipinos? When? When I visited the Philippines in 1986 there were 55 million people in PI. Now it is about 85 million. Obviously, if we are to estimate the amount of fish consumed we need to know how many people and when?

Lets see whether we can find the data for the years you are concerned about 1970, 1980, and 1990. Lets also see whether we can find the fish consumption for those years. I agree that it is probably declining as the resource declines and there are become more consumers due to human population growth over time.

In any event, if we take your numbers 70 lbs of fish consumed per year (whenever) and multiply it by 70 million people is does not become 7 trillion lbs of fish. It becomes 4.9 billion lbs consumed.

If we divide 4.9 billion lbs by 27,000 sq km of coral reefs it becomes 181,481 lbs per km square per year (not 33,000 lbs per square kilometer as you stated). The extrapolation to get 181,481 lbs/sq km is incorrect because it is highly likely that a lot of the fish came from areas other than coral reefs.

According to White and Cruz-Trinidad (1998) the contribution of reef fish to the total fisheries yield (harvest) in PI ranges from 8 to 20% or about 143,200 to 358,000 tons.

The estimates of the weight of fish harvested from Philippine coral reefs (yield) vary from 2.7 metric tons/sq km/yr to 36.9 metric tons/sq km/yr (Table 2.1 in White and Cruz-Trinidad 1998). The average yield from the 17 sites surveyed was 15.6 metric tons/sq km/yr. If we multiply this number by 2,205 lbs (to convert metric tons to US lbs) we get 34,398 lbs/sq km/year. I believe that you stated that the harvest was 33,000 lbs/sq km/year (not sure where you got this from). So, our estimates for this number are similar.

Estimates of total fish harvest in PI (landings and aquaculture) have been about 2 million metric tons per year. You are right that the amount from aquaculture has increased over the past few decades. I might accept your estimate that it went from 10% of the total harvest in 1970 to about 30% today. Please site the source of this information.

According to White and Cruz-Trinidad (1998) the total fisheries production in PI in 1996 was 2.8 million metric tons. The production from aquaculture was 981,000 tons (but about 60% of this was farmed seaweeds). The production of fish from municipal fisheries was 909,000 tons. The production from commercial fisheries was 879,000 tons. Hence the total was 2,769,000 metric tons. If we adjust the total to exclude seaweed production the total for aquaculture becomes 392,400 tons. The total overall; then becomes 2,180,000 metric tons. Aquaculture of fish represents roughly 18% of the total.

Based on 1990 data from BFAR, the reported harvest of fish sold in PI was about 2 million metric tons. The landings (excluding aquaculture) were 1.4 million metric tons. This agrees with Kalk's assumption that 30% of the total harvest came from aquaculture. If we convert 1.4 million metric tons to US pounds it becomes 3,087 million lbs (which is equivalent to about 3 billion pounds). I believe you estimated about 2 trillion pounds. Can we get someone like Tran to check these calculations?

There is no disagreement that the total fisheries landings in PI (on a weight basis) far exceeds that of MO aquarium fishes. Where I strongly disagree with Kalk is when he states that 80% of the fisheries landings were caught with cyanide. I don't have data to support this. Many species are caught using other fishing methods than cyanide.

It would take a lot more data and time to determine what proportion of the food fish landings were caught using cyanide. I could do it from the BFAR/IMA CDT data, if I could obtain accurate information on the landings by species or family groupings.

For now, I disagree with Kalk's assertions that the use of cyanide by the food fishery far exceeds the use of cyanide by the MO aquarium fishery.

 

[Kalkbreath]

We seem to agree on the numbers ........up until the point that you distribute the food fish to the people. Where are the 70 pounds of fish coming from?You feel the fish is comming out of the reported data for quaculture and commercial harvests. What you fail to account for , is that the average Philippine cannot afford to purchase his fish from either the aquaculture portion or the commercial collectors. The fish the average native eats are collected by a family member or village fishermen. Not store or market bought. I can prove this with several methods. first, the cost of aquacultured Milkfish or Taipei is too expensive for the locals to purchase. Take the average selling cost for milk fish and times by 70 pounds....you get more then the average yearly salary. Secondly, do you know why The Philippines are the signal largest exporter of aquacultured Tapia and milkfish? Its because they dont consume it themselves locally THEY EXPORT IT! Likewise for Commercial collections. Do you really think the average Philippine can afford to buy the comercial TUNA you suggested? There is a reason that during the last twenty years the population of coastal towns have been increasing drastically ......its to be closer to the free food{fishing}(Hunt, 1996)."50% of the families are below the poverty line, fishing the Lingayen Gulf serves as the only means of survival" (Paw, 1991). "The lack of alternative livelihood has forced many to move to the coastal areas. As the number of fishers increases, the catch per unit effort decreases. This has led many Filipino fishers to use destructive fishing methods, such as cyanide poisoning, fish blasting, and trawlers. Trawlers are used by most commercial fisheries because of the large yields they produce. . The poor economy and lack of alternative livelihood has led many Filipinos to resort to fishing. The increasing population puts a demand on the natural resources, and environmental problems develop." According to Dayton (1995), "fishing typically does not require land ownership and because it remains, in general, open to all, it is often the employer of last resort in the developing world- an occupation when there are no other options." "Overall, the fishfolk population has been increasing since the 1950’s resulting in very high fisherman and boat density. The gulf is currently experiencing biological overfishing due to excessive fishing efforts which have been noted in the mid 1970s" (Paw, 1991). THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE THAT AGREE WITH ME ON THIS!
The vast majority of the 70 pounds of fish consumed each year in the 1960s and 1970s was collected in the "municipl waters" by mom and pop to feed their immediate family {usually ten +people} They fished close to shore over the reefs and in the lagoons because they used hand made boats or swam from shore. Its these millions of fishermen that blasted and cyanided the reefs in the 60 70s 80s. They are why the reefs disappeared during this time frame. There was very little MO collection ....very little industrial pollution or runn off in the 1960s.......only the Philippine people themselves are to blame for the seventy percent reef decline prior to the mid eighties............And from 1975 to today the live food fish industry has taken up where blast fishing and throwing cyanide pellets over the side of the boat left off............Please sea next post.

 

[Kalkbreath]

AS FOR MY COMPARISON of FIFTY TO ONE for food fish to MO cyanide dammage?.........................

The live reef fish trade in Southeast Asia has an estimated annual retail value of $1.2 billion (U.S. dollars), $1 billion of which consists of exports of food fish (mostly to Hong Kong) and $200 million of which consists of exports of aquarium fish to Europe and North America.

A board the Morning Sun in the grey Hong Kong dawn just before Christmas 1997, a stocky Chinese stevedore stood waist-deep in a tank with dozens of furiously thrashing napoleon wrasse, one of the most spectacular of Asia's coral reef fishes. One by one, he wrestled the fish, some weighing nearly 30 kg. into a scoop net and into the hands of his co-workers on the dock above. Weighed and sold right on the dock for as much as $90 per kilogram, the fish were hustled off in minutes into waiting trucks equipped with their own holding tanks. By evening, some of them would be sold to elite Hong Kong diners willing to pay up to $180 per kilogram - and up to $225 per plate for the wrasse's lips, the most prized of reef fish delicacies.

By the time the Morning Sun had unloaded, some 20 tons of live reef fish - 8 tons of napoleon wrasse and 12 tons of assorted grouper species - were on their way to the districts where diners pick their fish from tanks at specialized shops for cooking in adjacent restaurants. The Morning Sun's catch, which came from Indonesian waters, was just a drop in the bucket, however: Some 20,000 tons of live reef food fish were imported into Hong Kong in 1997.(1) The scene that December morning was just one link in a chain of poison and profits that is bringing destruction to some of the planet's most pristine and biologically diverse coral reefs: The fish on the Morning Sun were almost certainly captured by applying hundreds of kilograms of cyanide, the most lethal broad-spectrum poison known to science, across vast areas of Indonesia's coral reefs.[1998, by Charles Victor Barber, Pratt. Vaughan R.]

Estimates by Lau and Parry-Jones (1999) reveal in 1997, "Hong Kong alone imported nearly 32,000 metric tons of live reef fish" Thats 70,000,000. SEVENTY MILLION POUNDS! Few reliable statistics exist for the total value or volume of the live reef fish food market, partly because cyanide fishing is illegal and therefore the market is inherently not transparent. That means Just Hong Kong alone imports 35 million two pound fish . And 80% are cyanide collected , so 29 million cyanide fish compared to our MO and its 29% of 4 million fish [ which means using your numbers that one million MO cyanide fish ........thats 29Hong Kong to one MO fish {just using Hong Kong}. Add the local consumption of cyanide fish which could range from your ten percent of fifty billion {5 billion pounds } or MY contention that sixty percent of fifty billion self consumption ......[thats 70,million people times 70 pounds = 50 billion pounds] so sixty percent of that is 30 billion pounds. And what you have is more then enough proof that cyanide food fish collection is so huge that to compare our industry and the cyanide food fish industry as you testified to ...as "50% to 50% is ******* Try five billion to one using your numbers{ ten percent of local diet =five billion pounds....and 1 million MO cyanide fish. Oh! but thats assuming that we collect one pound damsels :lol:

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, As far as your second to last posting most of this information is provided in the paper I wrote titled The Need For Conservation and Management of Philippine Coral Reefs published in the scientific journal Environmental Biology of Fishes in 1988. In my last posting I stated that 909,000 tons landed in PI came from the municipal (small scale) fishery.

It is encouraging to see that you quoted the IMA publications (Barber and Pratt 1997) so extensively.

I think you are missing my point. The cyanide testing data (done by IMA for BFAR) on food fishes was confined to testing conducted in the Philippines. So, the claims you make about food fishes being caught 80% with cyanide elsewhere are unsubstantiated. In my CDT paper published in Marine Ornamental Species Collection Culture and Cultivation I gave some data on the % of various species of groupers that were positive for cyanide. This was based on the Philippines sampling and testing done by the IMA.

Basically, I am saying the data to support your claims have not yet been published (although anecdotal information confirms the widespread use of cyanide in countries like Indonesia).

 

[Kalkbreath]

Kalk, As far as your second to last posting most of this information is provided in the paper I wrote titled The Need For Conservation and Management of Philippine Coral Reefs published in the scientific journal Environmental Biology of Fishes. In my last posting I stated that 909,000 tons landed in PI came from the municipal (small scale) fishery.

But that does not include the unreported self use food fish collection.especialy in the 1960 and 1970s. Do you really think every time a family member goes out to fish they run down to the fisheries office and report thier daily catch?

It is encouraging to see that you quoted the IMA publications (Barber and Pratt 1997) so extensively.

I think you are missing my point. The cyanide testing data (done by IMA for BFAR) on food fishes was confined to testing conducted in the Philippines. So, the claims you make about food fishes being caught 80% with cyanide are unsubstantiated elsewhere.

I will use A quote from a great man

Oh , there you go again "

See , when it serves you to paint Indonesia as a cyanide using Nation compariable to PI you do so. But when the idea that Indo uses cyanide works against your position ....you imply that testing is the only way to Know for sure.

In my CDT paper published in Marine Ornamental Species Collection Culture and Cultivation I gave some data on the % of various species of groupers that were positive for cyanide. This was based on the Philippines sampling and testing done by the IMA.

what did your data state? it was 65% in the early ninties?Then use 65% ! My numbers will only change 20% I used 80% for Hong Kong live food fish trade . And can back it up with quite a few other opinions other then mine. The type of fish Hong Kong imports are more geared to deep reef hiding fish and many if not most of the live food fish are transported directly by boat to HK.... thus by passing the exporting accountibility of Gov fisheries.

Basically, I am saying the data to support your claims have not yet been published (although anecdotal information confirms the widespread use of cyanide in countries like Indonesia).

What hasnt been published? Its all out there......only no one wants let loose of their own agendas. Even if only ten percent of the fish Philippinos eat is cyanide collected ..thats five billion pounds ..and the fact that the reefs declined at a time when Their SELF use blast fishing and cyanide fishing were the only stressors on the reefs in 1960, 70........then there is only ONE answer isnt there? If not then why during those twenty years?

 

[PeterIMA]

Kalk, There are lots of "so called experts". You seem to have found some that I don't know. I would very much like you to quote the papers tied to the authors names and where they were published (eg journal names).

In reality, the IMA was the only organization collecting data from the source countries and the volumes of live food fish traded with Hong Kong. We had staff based in Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, Marshall Islands, Fiji, Philippines, and Vanuatu, and were working with the South Pacific Commission (SPC) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to gather the data and put it into a database. So, the IMA was (and is) the only source of accurate data on the live food fish trade. Likewise we were the only group involved in conducting CDT in PI on both the live food and aquarium fish trades. If you think that the "experts" that you quoted have the data and the answers, why are you bothering with asking the IMA (through me). Will the MAC be able to provide the answers now that the MARINE AQUARIUM COUNCIL has branched off to "Certifying" the Live Food Fish Trade? You know the answer. The MAC will not collect real data, they are greenwashing both the live food fish and the live aquarium fish trades.

By the way, where did the 5 billion pounds figure come from? You imply in your posting that 10% of the fish which were cyanide caught weighed 5 billion pounds. My previous posting estimated that the total landings were 4.9 billion pounds. There is a difference in what you stated and what the 5 billion pounds represent.

You might even be right about the food fish trade using much more cyanide. But, there is a need for accurate data to prove it. The programs to do this no longer exist (funding from McArthur and Packard stopped coming to IMA and the work to gather and analyze the data are not being done by other organizations).

It is difficult to analyze the existing data due to the lack of funding.
Why should the IMA or myself work for free to provide you with answers? I will continue to provide you with answers that are already published. If that data says that cyanide use by both trades are about equal, that is what I will provide. If that means that eventually both trades will be prosecuted to stop cyanide fishing, I will be there to testify against the guilty parties.

 

[clarionreef]

Wow,
So in an attempt to convince people that the aquarium trade pales compared to the rising trade in food fishes caught with cyanide, Kalk has provided useful information to show what a monster it is becoming.
It is true that back in the early 80's the live food fish trade was a smaller, more clandistine, Chinese smuggling industry. Activity was more confined to the Palawan outer boundaries.
Divers I worked with migrated from Cebu to find richer areas because they had already ruined theirs off Cebu, Buhol and the Visayan area. They settled in Pangasinan and married into the community there and proceeded to inoculate the locals with the new collecting technology....cyanide. The ruining of the Visayan Seas was without the benefit of Kalks newly discovered live food fish industry. That was to grow in coming years. What struck me thru interviews with divers was that depletion and destruction of the collecting grounds by these guys was so profound that it sparked migration...even in the late 70's!
I fear that exposing the cyanide trade in food fish smuggled to Hong Kong had the effect of Filipinizing it...and paving entry for Filipinos to cash in on the 'new' Chinese secret industry. This allowed the institutionalization of the trade in live fish and the rise of the Philippine style whitewash of said industry.
Within a year of the 1986 expose memo to BFAR...then Minister Mitra of agriculture and fisheries had his own boys in on the business and had me train them under the cover of a Marcos era NGO Haribon.
When I asked the trainess how many were collecting aquarium fish...none raised their hand...not one.
Since I saw our mission from the outset as 'converting' bad boys instead of creating new ones...I began the first of many protests to the Haribon administration.
From then on the Philippine complicity in cyanide food fishing for 'export' grew in leaps and bounds.
I guess I was 'used' to become part of the whitewash and the spread of food fishing with poison in the Philippines. Minister Mitra was thankful to have the new trade lifted from Chinese control and delivered unto his.
Steve

 

[PeterIMA]

Steve,
I am aware that there was pressure to train food fishermen to use nets in PI in 1987 (the year we met with the Minister of Agriculture Ramon Mitra). Dante Pasia of IMA-Philippines was requested to coordinate it. The food fish companies wanted their collectors trained to use nets. What kind of a net do you need to catch a 30 lb grouper? Certainly not the fine mesh hand netting or the 2 mm barrier netting we have been discussing. I am not aware of a Haribon sponsored training in 1987. There was the BFAR-IMA training in Pagbilao Quezon, and some private trainings in Palawan and western Luzon that you, the IMA diver/trainers and Ferdinand representing Reg and Rix participated in).

The Haribon Net-Training Program occurred in 1990 and 1991. Steve, please provide years and months when you were there representing IMA-Canada(which become OVI in 1991). Did you mean to say that at certain training sites none of the trainees raised their hands to indicate they were MO collectors? Although, there was one Haribon training session done in Puerto Princesa, I do not believe you are referring to the Haribon Net-Training Program conducted during 1990 and 1991. I am sure that at those sites, the people trained were MO collectors. Please clarify your statements.

Peter