briefly with regards to the Mandarinfish:
I completely disagree Colin. I believe that that wild mandarin stocks are probably one of the MOST SUSTAINABLE MO fisheries in the world. For whatever reasons, they seem to breed like crazy even in depleted, degraded, overfished reefs everywhere they live! So, why invest in captive breeding of a "low value" fish when it is so readily abundant and sustainable? Unless of course the captive reared mandarin learn to accept prepared foods more readily like many of the larval-reared, corallivore butterflies do; it would be great if ALL mandarins would eat flake food! This however, would as you agreed I think, "steal" the mandarin market away from the fishers who collect them in the wild....
This position confuses me a bit. For one it seems to suggest to me that the fact that mandarinfish are so plentiful, they should continue to collect them despite our agreement that they have a poor track record of survival and accepting food in the aquarium. I was also considering the captive-bred market to be a separate market from wild-caught. And you are correct that with that same frame of mind you can separate the net caught and "unknown method caught" into two markets, but my opinion is that the distinction is less clear, especially if you tell me that nearly all of the mandarins from PI have been net caught for years. And also the only way that I see that you can create those two different markets is by having an organization such as MAC put their seal of approval on the mandaris' cubicles at the retail store. And that I don't see happening for a while...
It is clear that ORA has not "stolen" the market for clownfish, as I can see that wild-caught clownfish are a staple collection fish here in Indo. So I doubt that if someone like ORA devised a captive breeding program, they would "steal" the market from the fishermen. The demand for these beautiful fish is enormous. I think that we agree that if captive raised mandarinfish were more likely to eat flake foods, be parasite free, and in general be healthier, that would be a benefit to many more aquarists who otherwise shouldn't be keeping such a fish (thus broadening the "market"). I think that we can all dream of a time when our fish are all captive raised. Mark, I'm not disagreeing with you in whole. We agree on about 90% of this, and semantics most likely clouds another 9%
My thought was that the book seems to have already been written on clownfish, so it seems to me perhaps a waste of precious research money for the government program to be spending. I was suggesting that mandarins in my "pipe dream" (I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one ;-)), would be a suitable species for a research lab that has tackled clownfish to try and breed considering their sexual dimorphism, market demand, and (relative) ease of breeding. First food, goddamn you first food, where are you???
The thing about the Commies was sarcastic, I should have used a smiley face or something. I thought that someone (not you) might equate MAC's promotion of brotherhood in the local fishing communities as a "Red scare" like big business has done all across the world since the unionization practice began. I didn't mean to suggest that you were suggesting this. Silly semantics.
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In reference to the other posts:
-I will find out who trained Ding Dong (as a trainer) if you would like, but really does it matter as long as he is working for MAC now? I know for a fact that MAC trained him as a trainer to teach other fishermen, and most likely trained him or at least advanced his net use.
-I can't understand from all that I've written thus far that someone can infer that in Indonesia the "Process" has become the primary objective instead of the actual goal. All I report is actual work from the field with collectors and fishermen. "Process" to me means paperwork and beauracracy, and I see very little of that compared to actual goals being worked towards. (Which isn't to say that the MAC office staff aren't busy all daylong, they are, but being an NGO in a foreign country is probably going to require a lot of paperwork, but that is the nature of the game...)
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Add to that the fact that the MAC net trainings have not been effective and what do you have? My answer is very little or NOTHING.
I couldn't disagree more, and honestly I don't know how you can "prove" this on your own without seeing it one way or the other with your own eyes... Many fish are being caught with nets as the result of MAC training, but haven't been "certified" just yet for various reasons that are being worked on through more training, etc. As far as I can see everyone working here for MAC Indo considers this a success no matter what. Keep in mind that if a MAC-certified supplier (suppliers and their fishermen are certified together) sells to an uncertified exporter, the fish lose their certification, and thus you would never know the difference once they got to the US. But still, the quality of livestock entering the US is going to be higher (Unless of course the exporter is incompetant and whittles back any gains in fish health due to their own ignorance...).
- ReefCheck and MAC share the same offices here in Bali (along with CCIF) if that sheds any light. They share many of the same resources, manpower, and goals.
- Ding Dong is not the only MAC trainer, if you've been reading anything I've written in this thread, you'd be aware that MAC Indo has their own Indonesian trainers. There are 4 Indonesian trainers (that I know of) who are intelligent and competent, and at least 2 are also previous fishermen themselves. I will do some sleuthing to find out what the exact roster is.
- So what about the flipside? For a specific example, what if MAC decided that by training fishermen in Pulua Seribu it would undermine their efforts in the Phillipines? Should MAC ignore Pulau Seribu? They are already collecting mandarins, and until MAC's recent work, were using cyanide. Should MAC just have avoided this village all together? It would be much more helpful if people that have something against MAC (Mark, I'm not including you in this bunch, but your question was a convenient example) would expound on "What MAC should be doing" if you think what they ARE doing is inappropriate. What are the other options that could be more beneficial?
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I would much rather be spending my precious internet time reporting SPECIFICLY what I am seeing, and not having to rebut over and over the same GENERAL conjectures by the same people. If you have already made up your mind about MAC and there will be no changing it, please start a different thread to vent your feelings. If there is a very SPECIFIC thing that I report that raises your ire, then by all means chime in. I am all for constructive criticism and intelligent debate, it helps to power progress. This thread continues to get off topic and I find it very tiresome. I can't help but feel that that the recent positive movement on MAC's part in Indonesia that I report is causing certain people to have to fire back with general negative energy to try and undermine any progress in the public relations arena. I also can't help but feel that the bogging down and wearing out with general negative energy and little helpful constructive criticism towards the topic at hand is conciously or unconciously employed to get me to stop posting what
I am actually witnessing with my own eyes.
Thanks,
Colin
ps. Thanks for the links to some of the old MAC posts, when I have time I will try and sift through them.
