is the hobby responsible....

[bookfish]

I think we, as a forum and industry, need to move beyond assessing how much damage we do to the reefs relative to other peoples activities. I think a much more important point is that we are the main group that focuses on (and profits from) the beauty of the live animals. The curio trade doesn't care if the reef or corals are healthy. Neither does the wall/airport/road builder.
So regardless of whether we're responsible for X% or Y% of the damage, we have a lot invested in the health of the reefs worldwide.-Jim

 

[Kalkbreath]

I think we, as a forum and industry, need to move beyond assessing how much damage we do to the reefs relative to other peoples activities.Jim

We still need to determine IF we do any damage!
Does removing one wild coral from its place on the reef constitute damage?
How about one fish ? How about one hundred?
We cant fix a problem until we establish that it exists.
What is the current problem ?

 

[clarionreef]

Kalk,
All the collectors who migrate and move on after they ruin their first region agree that the damage they did was a lot.
I learned from them on this...not the reverse.
Filipino collectors know their daily fishing areas and know far, far better then anyone or the occassional tourist [ sub biologist] that may show up when the moon is blue and create a tad of anecdotal evidence.
Bookfish zeroed in on it when he said that the part we focus on is a more critical niche involving species only we covet and target. This tends to compromise that more specific, critical habitat and hurt those fish types the most.
The decimation of blue tang thruout our work areas is profound and universal. No one wants 2 inch blue tang but us.
The irony is how much this ruining of tropical fish populations has hurt fisherfolk so much as a few Westerners deny its existance.
Steve

 

[clarionreef]

Rather then deny it ever happened a better defense is...
"I vas only following ze ordas".

Steve
PS We really went to the moon also.

 

[Kalkbreath]

You said the same thing in 1982. {no more fish and all the corals dead}
Yet fish are still plentiful and dirt cheap in PI ..............TWENTY years later.
Asking for a little proof before we hand over more money , hardly seems unreasonable.
There is more money spent each year fixing the "Problems" then is spent on fish from PI. |Whats the total US dollars spent on fish from PI?
At 6 million fish and with an average cost of less then a dollar........the total industry pends less then six million on PI fish .{less shipping and handling}
Whats the yearly budget for MAC and all the reeform groups working in PI? ten million?
Seems it would make better sense to just pay the collectors not to fish!
Thats an effective use of donation money!

 

[clarionreef]

Kalk,
Thats quite a revelation...ie that as much is spent on non-reform then on the actual fish! The years of environmental malpractice ruins the case for sincere effort doesn't it?
Steve
PS.
There are many damaged regions now thruout Luzon and the Visayas thanks to our past and yet the trade keeps the numbers up by moving on futher afield and deeper.
More than ever fish come in from Bicol, Samar, Mindinao and the far North.
The catch per unit effort has increased as well.

 

[clarionreef]

Its a Marriage of convenience.
Where non performing partners [ ie. reformers ]ally with inequity [ ie.the cyanide trade ] to perpetuate an illusion [ ie. a status quo that both accept.]
Its either comensal or mutually parasitic....I can't figure out which.
They privately blame each other yet tolerate each other publicly.

Meanwhile, back on the reef where niether dealer nor reformers bother to tread....

 

[bookfish]

I think we, as a forum and industry, need to move beyond assessing how much damage we do to the reefs relative to other peoples activities.Jim

We still need to determine IF we do any damage!
Does removing one wild coral from its place on the reef constitute damage?
How about one fish ? How about one hundred?
We cant fix a problem until we establish that it exists.
What is the current problem ?

Exactly, "the problem" is, as I'm sure we all know, actually a multitude of problems from a bunch of different sources. Our local reef club recently hosted a presentation from CORAL.org who are specifically concerned with responsible eco-tourism (diving and such).
What we, as an industry, are responsible for may be a less important question than what we can do to help.-Jim

 

[Kalkbreath]

And what helpful activities do you suggest?
Replanting corals on dead reefs , usualy makes the participants feel real good ...........but more often then not results in a dead donor coral.
The reasons the original native corals died is usually well out of the scope of activities well meaning reeformers can control.
[like agriculture run off].

 

[mkirda]

We still need to determine IF we do any damage!
Does removing one wild coral from its place on the reef constitute damage?
How about one fish ? How about one hundred?
We cant fix a problem until we establish that it exists.
What is the current problem ?

The fallacy that you are caught in here is that more study is needed to establish a fact that has already be established.

An example: One can learn from looking at records from the past several hundred years that taking a gun shot to the skull is usually fatal. We do not need to study this further.

The problem here in this forum is rather simple: It is the closed-mindedness and the anti-intellectual stance by the few who automatically refute any and all evidence and fact.
Proof can be given multiple times in multiple ways - Given intellectual open-mindedness and all the evidence, there is only one possible conclusion. Yet the few will deny everything.

To prove the fact that the marine ornamental industry is guilty, one need only show a single record. In reality, thousands and thousands from multiple years exist. The evidence is irrefutable. Cyanide use to capture marine fish is still going on. And every one of those fish captured using cyanide will probably result in a cubic foot or more of dead coral, depending on the water motion.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[mkirda]

The reasons the original native corals died is usually well out of the scope of activities well meaning reeformers can control.
[like agriculture run off].

Kalk,

The problem with your argument is that you assume here that *all* reefs are shallow, near-shore reefs. How would you explain reef destruction on reef shoals that are 50 or 60 miles offshore? When the reefs are decimated this far out, it isn't from agricultural runoff (especially when the island nearest to it has no agriculture in any significant amount). Unless you consider squirt bottles "agricultural run-off".

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[clarionreef]

Keyword;
'Agricultural runoff'...
Implying that the collecting areas are near agricultural areas including seamounts, islands, offshore achipelagos and far flung areas with few people has just got to be tongue in cheek.
Its an old Marco era artifact employed largely to deflect attention away from culpability in the cyanide issues and yet pops up here today again in Kalkspeak.

For me , its not the siltation issue thats interesting here but where the 'coaching' comes from or where the motive to blame farmers for poisoning offshore acropora habitat comes from.
For many years this was a primary defense of the cyanide cartel itself.
[ now known as the certified cyanide cartel ]
Rivermouths were never the classic collecting areas anyway, not even in the old days.
Steve

 

[Kalkbreath]

Im speaking of the newest feel good activity. {ie fund raisers}
Reeformers have given up fighting the real killers of the reefs and now like to ralley up the troups by planting daiseys.......I mean transplant corals on dead reefs.
As for blaming the trade for large areas of dead reef in the farr off waters, our trade fishermen dont use concentrations potent enough to kill wide sections of reef. Only the reef within inches of the squirt bottle is concentrated enough to kill coral but not the target fish. Lets whip out your cyanide photos Mike , let the people make up their own minds.
Your own studies confirm that pet fishermen using cyanide at best leave pock marked damage[a few inches ] ..........a spot here a spot there. Next you will be showing us photos of the warm water bleachings {miles of white reef} and attributing that to the trade .
This topic was about what the trade should do next and is it responsible for the dead reefs where its offering something back [as group]?
Reeformers going to places like Fiji or Maldives and replanting corals seems like a nice act ,but not if the public watching think the industry is trying to amend what it did to those reefs. How many of the average journalists apon seeing aquarium hobbyists replanting corals in Maldives would not assume the hobbyists were replanting out of guilt that their hobby was responsible for the missing coral in the Maldives? Many people still ask us at our store if the corals we sell come from Florida!

 

[clarionreef]

Kalkwrites;
" Only the reef within inches of the squirt bottle is concentrated enough to kill coral but not the target fish." ????
The cyanide plume ...of which I have seen a hundred.... starts out out a bottle and spreads out burning all in its path....The dead spot goes necrotic and keeps killing the area for awhile. Subsequent squirts fill in and overlap....creating dead zones thruout the collectors path...crisscrossed by him and others thruout the day.
Tomorrow other collectors may arrive unaware of the previous days activity and so it goes on and on.
Damage...accumalative damage in a year can literally cash in the whole area forcing divers to move on and even migrate.
Spot damages??? You mean as in small pregnancies and small cancers? :!:

Then he gets spot on and redeems himself;
He writes;
'Reeformers have given up fighting the real killers of the reefs and now like to ralley up the troups by planting daiseys......."

My but you are lazer sharp there!
Its safer planting daiseys and no ones against it. Its easy and so cheap you can pocket the rest in administration costs. Meanwhile the reefs gets laid to waste at an unaffected pace by the real things that kill it.
Hes got the new eco proto type pegged to a tee.
Why let Kalk alone get credit for having the courage and the foresight to see this?
If we have tokenism and malpractice passing for real effort to save coral reefs then the real job becomes so much harder..
I thank Kalk for pointing this 'plant a daisey ...lose the reef' style of self service masquerading as environmentalism.
Steve

 

[naesco]

Unfortuneately Kalk represents industry in its truest colours.

Regrettably, Bush was re-elected which allows industry to continue its rape of the reefs and the critters that dwell therein.

 

[dizzy]

Wayne, what has Canada done to stop reef destrution? All the hot air being spouted up there is only contributing to global warming, which is a far more serious threat to the reefs than local abuse. Clean your own house first.
Mitch

 

[clarionreef]

Yeah Wayne,
You think theres just one party down here?

Clinton gave us the USCRTF....I guess thats the thing you imagine would've saved the reefs if Bush had not been re-elected?

Even us life long Democrats have trouble with this kind of pre-school understanding of the world.
Steve

 

[naesco]

Wayne, what has Canada done to stop reef destrution? All the hot air being spouted up there is only contributing to global warming, which is a far more serious threat to the reefs than local abuse. Clean your own house first.
Mitch

Fair comment. Well not really!

Personally I decided it would be a fruitless effort to do all those things necessary to close down the PI cyanide industry. It included lobbying for mandatory stateside cyanide testing and immediate prosecution of all those involved in the cyanide trade here (read all those who knowingly or wrecklessly buy cyanide caught fish)
If however, as the rest of the world expected, Bush would be soundly defeated, than the above actions would naturally be commenced.

The re-election of Bush set back cyanide reeform 4 more years.

Why not Canada you say?

Canada imports a tiny amount, mostly from cyanide free suppliers compared to the US so the major effort must be down there.
We do not have a Lacey Act which allows the indictment, trial and imprisonment of all those involved in the cyanide conspiracy.
It is my opinion that the Lacey Act is the only hammer reeform has.
When several LA heads fall the rest will tow the line.

 

[Anonymous]

bush's presence in office has nothing to do with anything, really



economics does


this issue has no political relevance for any american party whatsoever

 

[clarionreef]

He writes;
Canada imports a tiny amount, mostly from cyanide free suppliers compared to the US .... ????????:roll:

Canada, in proportion to all marine fish imports...imports even more cyanide caught Bali and Philippine fish then the US]
Steve
PS. Wow, our very own little whitewash happening right here.