If you were going to rewrite HR 4928....

[Anonymous]

As merely a concerned hobbyist, I for one would like to see more folks in the industry take an active interest in getting behind this bill and helping to push it through while shaping it in a constructive manner instead of just peeking out your windows and reporting that no the sky is not falling, the building is not on fire or pointing fingers at who is to blame for introducing it in the first place.

Some of you people really sicken me sometimes..

 

[Anonymous]

I know that the degradation of the world's reef systems is serios business, and something must be done to protect them for the enjoyment of future generations, and for the overall health of the planet, but I do not want to see livlihoods destroyed either.

Think about this sentence Alf. There is no if or BUT when it comes to destruction of the reefs period.

Prices will go up on the short term as demand outstrips supply but healther fish, better catchment and shipping, prohibition of fish and coral that have no hope of survival (USL) will mean next to nil DOA rates and more profit for industry.

The loss of jobs is a favourite threat by those who attempt to justify unacceptable practices (like pollutors) and carries no weight whatsoever.

wayne are you now saying that none of the '3rd world' people who make a pittance living supplying the trade will be forced out of a relatively scarce job market?

will you pay for them to come to canada to work ?

will mean next to nil DOA

can you be more specific as to what you mean by 'next to nil'?

and how long do you think that will take?

 

[keethrax]

Prices will go up on the short term as demand outstrips supply but healther fish, better catchment and shipping, prohibition of fish and coral that have no hope of survival (USL) will mean next to nil DOA rates and more profit for industry.

The loss of jobs is a favourite threat by those who attempt to justify unacceptable practices (like pollutors) and carries no weight whatsoever.

How does any of this result in an almost nil DOA rate? That statement makes no sense. Will it reduce the DOA rate, possibly, but reduce it to almost nil, not a chance.

Same wiht loss of jobs. As harsh as it is, you're basically right as far as jobs here go. But loss of fish collector jobs is an issue. As the collection industry is one of the few things that may make the locals start looking towards conservation. If they can no longer collect, where is there incentive to preserve anything?

I would be willing to bet a fair chunk of money that if you stopped MO collection in many areas, it would increase the rate of damage to the reefs, rather than decrease it. As far as damage to certain species, this may not be the case, but even then the ensuing more rapid habitat destrucion would likely pick up the slack from the MO collecting eventually.

 

[Anonymous]

The loss of jobs is a favourite threat by those who attempt to justify unacceptable practices (like pollutors) and carries no weight whatsoever.

It is my opinion, that the needs of the people to eat tomorow should carry weight, insomuch as reform is doomed to fail if these people are not offered some sort of livlihood. These are people, you know. They bleed and laugh and cry just like you. I have not said that I condone destructive practices anywhere in my above post.

Prices will go up on the short term as demand outstrips supply but healther fish, better catchment and shipping, prohibition of fish and coral that have no hope of survival (USL) will mean next to nil DOA rates and more profit for industry.

I think you are dreaming if you think price increaces will be "short term". The cost of upgraded logistics, administration, and paperwork will cause considerable Permanant price increaces. There is no way arround that.

I would assume that LFS (retailers) make a fairly decent margin on ornamental marine species by a nice markup. The costs I spoke of above will be passed from the importers to the retailers, and then to the customers. This will cause a loss of patronage (how severe is dependant on overall increase in costs). The increased prices will undoubtedly result in less business in these ornamental species, and trickled down to drygods and hardware. Prety much everything having to do with keeping Marine ornamentals will become considerably more expensive.

With the loss of patronage, the LFS will be forced to cut margin in order to provide more affordable prices to thier customers in an attempt to keep sales volume up and pay thier bills.

When this bill passes, I am sure that it will cause the closure of many mom-and-pop operations.

Maybe, naesco, you are one of the lucky few operations that will be able to wheather this and perhaps even profit from it, but I am sure that many more will close down. Will you feed thier children?

Jobs do matter.

 

[Anonymous]

I would assume that LFS (retailers) make a fairly decent margin on ornamental marine species by a nice markup.

The majority of fish shops break even on live fish. Yes, the markup is high, but by the time the fish has been sold, all profits have been eaten in housing costs. For every day the fish/coral is in the store, the cost of keeping it reduces the overall profit, (ie the water and electricity to house it, the food, and the employee to clean the tank, and bag it up, not to mention give free advice). Many of those costs are fixed, so any increase in wholesale price will be reflected in the retail price. The higher the retail prices the less people buying, the less people buying the less people trying to make money.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the correction. That is interesting.

 

[clarionreef]

Guys,
Just over a year ago a collecting village in Mexico[ fishery co-op ] was put out of business by several layers of government officials seeking to regulate and survey, monitor and slap more sanctions on the tropical fish trade.
7 DIVERS, netsman at that were stopped from collecting the annual tropical fish crop in a wide-ranging area in Bajas midriff.
But none of them stopped working the sea. The local buyer of fresh killed fish has a logbook of every fish taken in from the ex-fish collectors as it is the payment calculator..

In that logbook is a daily count of snappers, groupers, basses, parrotfish,hogfish, triggerfish, grunts, sharks, rays, yellowtail, pompano, skipjack, scallops, conch etc. taken in the past year by the boys.
It may not surprise some of you to find that the toll of the years local fish subtraction ran into the tons. Every week, a 5 ton ice truck carried out the tonnage of fish biomass. On top of that, most species were slower growing top predators and even apex predators.

If this carnage were to be seen as the alternative to taking tropical fishes, only a complete idiot would consider it any kind of intelligent trade-off. Instead of working herbivores and fast growing annuals...the divers switched to the far less sustainable food fish populations already under attack from dozens more fisherman in the village.

The logbooks tally more tonnage every week as the divers hope and pray their permit will be granted again by administrators that allegedly understand the sea.
Make no mistake...for every pound of herbivores and plankton feeders not taken by the collectors...a hundred pounds of other marinelife dies.
And so it will occur in the Philippines and Indonesia...and wherever full time fisherman live and work.
Sincerely, Steve

 

[clarionreef]

And the shutdown occured...
after 5 years of paying for research and monitoring by the co-op that was shut down! They paid from revenue generated thru catching fish.
The research was 'borrowed' by the gov't and sold to another exporter to justify their permit!
None of the idealized notions of reef reform will stand as intended I assure you. As we attempt to impose our will on another nations policies it will pass thru a political and cultural 'filter' that we are ignorant of...and what comes out may hardly resemble the intent of the original effort.
Think; Does the Philippine and Indonesian fishery departments really take any of this seriously? They do in fact award export documents to all exporters on a daily basis and NEVER hold them to account for any of the environmental crimes discussed here for the past three years.
Steve

PS. They let most any group that brings in some free money to finance their own vacations, fixations and playthings have a free reign. They have plenty of their own groups in country and with far greater understanding then the outsiders...but theres one thing the locals don't have...and thats lots of foriegn capital.
Good ideas without money will lose out every time to bad ideas with money. If you have ever delt with high authorites in either country, you'll understand what I mean.

 

[Anonymous]

Theres a reason its called the "golden rule"....

 

[clarionreef]

Exactly,
And it belittles the attempt to strive for something higher...if all sides are really just going for the gold.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

so how would you rewrite it ?

 

[clarionreef]

I would revamp it to its core;
The demand side approach will not work.
It has to be worked on the other side.
How many Americans have died to guarantee fuel for SUVs this year in Iraq? Noble huh?
Has not the demand for SUVs actually risen?

If demand side lip-service hardly works in such a critical area where the whole population is involved...what makes anyone think that aquarists are so much higher thinking on social/environmental issues?

If they were conscious and caring as a lot, we wouldn't be in this fix.
Whoever thinks this discredited notion can work has never worked wholesale or retail, thats for sure.
Exporters from Indo and Philippines have been saddened to see how obsessed and price focused the hobby culture has become...to the exclusion of all else.
The exceptions to this ie. people who really care enough to alter their buying habits add up to exactly one hill of beans and a small hill at that. Even smaller is the anthill of dealers who will alter their buying habits to support sustainability.
This is dirt cheap to fix as a social development issue and one that employs and empowers locals to fix their own problems.
Training is a remedy...not a debate. Its an admission of culpability and an attempt to set things right.
2 training teams of 7 divers each...could spark a demand for training and generate a buzz, a multiplier effect and make this a must do type thing among divers. Its already been ignited...and extinguished.
It is a low key, inexpensive social vocational training road show that takes villages one by one and trains them for their own reasons, their own benefits and their own income enhancement.
Foreigners and city people need to be kept to an absolute mimimum when working in someone elses house..
Trainees must out number this 'traveling fishery extention service' by a factor of 8 to one.
Bang for the buck and a result orientated timetable could be put together and conversions could come to the tune of 40-50 per training.
With two trainings a month by each training team, you'd be on a thousand per year pace. As a second team gets constituted based on new trainers ability and talent for teaching fellow divers the trained diver figures would ramp up.
The ultimate would be to have three competent commercial diver training squads that get bonuses based on conversions. Conversions verified by the stay behind diver/trainer you leave at each village for another month of follow-up.
[ Hence the need for 7 trainers per team in the first place]
Anyway...its all commercial and all pegged to productivity and measureable results. After the pool of talent is amplified 10 fold in the country...other improvements, surveys, researches etc. can have a better foundation on which to build.
Anyway,
Thats just an inkling but the focus is on THEM..not us to begin with. You train and teach for them and theirs. Our benefits are incidental to the success of the divers conversions. No conversions...no benefits.
Steve
By proposing a 'self-help in-country' project Ed Case could help solve a problem instead of help create an industry out of it.
For less then a million...the environmental sabatoge aspect of our trade could be weaned off cyanide and then and only then will you see the truer picture of recruitment and recovery of fish stocks as nature intended them to be like. At least, if the reefs futher degrade...it would be without our complicity.

 

[clarionreef]

There,
Instead of a massive $30,000,000. white elephant
we substitute 1,000,000. of pure training @ village level.
______________
$29.000.000. savings
PS.
Forward copies to Rep. Case

 

[horge]

The demand side approach will not work.
It has to be worked on the other side.

That is simply the clearest thinking to come out of this thread.
Supply side reform has unfortunately SEEMED less than encouraging, after decades of work and wealth poured into it. Reforming and upgrading the suply side of the trade hinges on to things:

Honesty on the part of local government
Honesty on the part of the NGO, foreign or local

Neither has been particularly reliable.
The good guys grow old, tired, and poor.
The less-proncipled have substantial compensation to keep them going.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again.
There only SEEMS to be little to show after years of 'reform'.
I can't offer documentation, not even the quicky swimbelt transect sort,
but the greater share of Philippine reefs frequented by ornamentals collectors are visibly improved from the devastation of the late 80's.

A lot of people have inordinate amount of faith in the ability of the United States to 'legislate' countries into compliance on any number of issues.

The US does have influence on the Philippines, but none of its past exhortations/threats regarding IPR, illegal drugs, or terrorism have really had measurable effect on how (and at what pace) the Philippines sorts out problems it would have addressed on its own anyway. When technique and training are provided to a natural motivation for reform, however, the results can be impressive.

 

[Jaime Baquero]

The problem is that the industry as a whole has not that natural motivation for reform. The response from the industry during the last 16 years has ben nil. Meanwhile, the trade is putting more and more pressure to collect the few fish that remain. See what is happening with the Blue Tangs, collectors can not find them in places where once were abundant. Collectors will keep chasing the few ones that remain in order to make a few pesos to put food on the table. Collectors know very well that this is wrong but someone is willing to pay for it. The aquarium hobbyist in Ottawa is paying up to $79 canadian dollards for a one and half inches Blue Tang. You can add shipping cost, mortality, overhead etc etc, but $79 CDN is a huge amount of money for that particular fish.

How much money of those $ 79 are going back to the reefs? ..... Zero! Those $ 79 could be the motivation for reform, but it is not the case. This trade-cide must be stopped.

I do remember that someone sent a message saying what happened to the Filipino people living in the Subic area when the US closed their base in Subic. Nothing happened they found the way to survive and seems that theyère doing better than when Americans were there.

 

[JennM]

The aquarium hobbyist in Ottawa is paying up to $79 canadian dollards for a one and half inches Blue Tang. You can add shipping cost, mortality, overhead etc etc, but $79 CDN is a huge amount of money for that particular fish.

How much money of those $ 79 are going back to the reefs? ..... Zero! Those $ 79 could be the motivation for reform, but it is not the case. This trade-cide must be stopped.

Well that price is not out of line compared to what hobbyist in Atlanta are paying in US dollars. Factor in the exchange and it's pretty much in line. What do you consider a 'fair' price, based on the cost price, freight, box, and typical store overhead? My store system gets 100 gallon water change weekly... that's a lot of water and salt, plus food, vitamins, filter media, electricity...

I can only speak for the few wholesalers I deal with but P. hepatus have been scarce... so yeah they are fetching a higher price. I don't know what the mainstream wholesalers are doing - perhaps they have an abundance, but my suppliers don't. My customers are willing to pay for a healthy one.

No, no money goes back to the reefs - the diver, the exporter, any middle-man, the importer, the retailer and the airlines all get a piece of the pie... but unless some sort of (gulp) tax is imposed that would be channeled back to the reefs in some way (after all the top-heavy administrators and tax collectors took their bit), none of that money will ever go back to the reefs.

Jenn

 

[John_Brandt]

No, no money goes back to the reefs - the diver, the exporter, any middle-man, the importer, the retailer and the airlines all get a piece of the pie... but unless some sort of (gulp) tax is imposed that would be channeled back to the reefs in some way (after all the top-heavy administrators and tax collectors took their bit), none of that money will ever go back to the reefs.

The United States Commission on Ocean Policy is recommending that a reformed marine ornamental industry be modelled after The Tropical Forest Conservation Act. See: http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=548724#548724. This actually might return money to the reefs - so to speak, by directly funding conservation efforts.

 

[Anonymous]

adding a tariff is neither necessary, nor will it ever be accepted/tolerated long term by the industry, or the consumer

mac doesn't realize/doesn't accept this, and it's one of the reasons i think the whole 'certification' scam won't fly, when push comes to shove


in the meantime, the other ngo's should be scouring the face of the earth for a private sugar daddy, or daddies, to get the education/training ball going

what is the cost of sending two training teams over to the phillipines and running the first 'term' of courses ?

 

[John_Brandt]

If HR 4928 were to pass as a bill aimed to reform the marine ornamental industry it would be entirely funded by American taxpayers. If reasonable licence fees were charged for compliance with HR 4928 there could be some return of revenue and "funding" by the trade itself. There is no suggestion of a "tax" or "tariff" on the trade in HR 4928.

 

[naesco]

How dare you blame me for the potential unemployment of cyanide fishers.
You, in industry who have been aware of those in the Philippines and stateside that are part of the cyanide cartel and said nothing and did nothing.
I warned you 18 months ago and you did nothing.

I advised you to gather the LA Gang together and tell them to stop cyanide period and you chose to scorn that advice.

Now you have a courageous representative who has blown the whistle on you and he is the demon you say

You got what was coming to you. Don't lay the bleeding heart trip that some poor disadvantaged Philippino and his family will suffer when we are know that it is YOU who will suffer.