The following message is from Ferdinand Cruz,
AND GOT LOST IN LESSER DISCUSSION;
To the readers
There are several important reasons why I have not been a constant participant in the RDO for some time but now perhaps by citing a few I would be answering the hullabaloo of the netting thing.
More than a year ago after so many meetings with the country director of MAC Philippines I was asked to keep silent on so many of the hot issues to give them a chance to do the whole program the right way. This director even went as far as promising that to satisfy me he would see to it that in each of their trainings I would be asked to validate the authenticity and correctness to set my mind at peace. I was even asked to submit a proposal for training and methods of approaches and details for training in order that we can all do one training method.
Since the way it was offered sounded so sincere I agreed to everything except giving them a detailed method and approaches and I was very blunt in saying that ...
I cannot give any manual and details due to MAC’s predilection to take shortcuts and bastardize the trainings.
In that meeting I mentioned that they are welcome to the hand netting materials explaining that it needs a different technique but should be included as one of the important component of training. alIt is needed to catch certain species effectively that a barrier net cannot almost catch.
In that meeting I was told I will be contacted for some nets when there is a need. Now certain species that needs this different netting material are appearing in the supply chain that is being claimed as caught in volume by barrier nets. So who would presume that they did not have this kind of nets? I presumed of course that with all their mega bucks they would rather purchase these kinds of nets so as not to have anything to do with me ................because after submitting the proposal that came out after sever meetings to discuss it the gods of Hawaii came to visit us acting like cardinals from Rome left and never was heard from again.
Prior to submitting that proposal in that meeting again the country director and I discuss the problem of increasing the number of collectors by training more non-collectors.
My stand on this then was that there were just over a thousand true existing suffering collectors then and at present and if you increase them with out a guarantee of a good viable income you have more candidates of future cyanide users. I just saw a very small almost imperceptible nod when I wanted this commitment.
We had to study supply on our own. Consider this issue. When IMA was still an active player in this field the collated data of volume of export and the volume of flow of ornamental fish to export facilities were collected every year. IMA monitored the land sea and air system of transport of ornamental fish. We knew where it was coming from and the volume that was being brought into Manila. (I doubt if somebody is doing this now to know what is really happening and this should be done.) The last record I had of this was in 1997. Up to that point there were still a lot of exporters and the big ones would be able to export approximately 2,000 to 3,000 boxes monthly. It was even higher before 1997. Now there are fewer exporters and the big ones are hard put in exporting a maximum of a thousand five hundred boxes a month. Exporters now send their buying agents to the field with money to corner supply and a lot of them come back empty handed or with trash and badly treated fishes. I know that the reason being claimed for this situation is that there are less ornamental fish collectors now but three weeks ago we went out to look for a certain species that we needed to get. We went to a place that was very well known to have it and for three days with three of us diving we were only able to get four pieces and the place had almost no fish at all.
We learn from the mistakes of MAC and will not dare do what they are dong. One incident; they trained in one area. They had to big shots of BFAR attending a closing ceremony of the training. Big party!!! When the graduating ceremony was about to begin somebody told them that collection was ban in that area by law. That was funny but what is not funny is that now that place is a heaven for corruption. Any group of collector can go there and use cyanide to their hearts content as long as they have cash. And the fish from that graduation all died even those disposed in Cartimar Center where all cyanide and badly mauled fish ends for the local market serving unsuspecting hobbyist. Now we have Sulu as the bragging point of training and certification. It is the height of hypocrisy.
The audacity of this claim!!! This time this group carried green washing to the highest level.
Would anybody in the West dare spend a few weeks to validate the truth of the effectiveness of this training? This is where the word MORO MORO was coined.
Ferdie
