In the years of existence of the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) it has tried in subtle and not so subtle ways to coerce certain sectors that their certification scheme and methodologies are the “one and only right way” to reform the industry. They have done this by publicity blitzes and dubious claims of success. We tried to be constructive in our criticisms hoping MAC would do the right thing instead of attempting to brainwash the public with glossy public pronouncements and farfetched claims of accomplishments. Our wishful thinking was MAC would settle down to real work that would result in real impacts and consistent delivery of its goals for which it is being funded, doing away with tons of excuses for its mediocre performance. With some changes in its management, we falsely hoped things would change for the better and the word “CERTIFICATION” and the means to achieve it would be corrected. We all wanted it to be done right and become a reality and not a piece of laminated plastic card, logo or sticker that has no meaning at all and is in fact misleading. We hoped that the collectors who were given these cards that say MAC Certified Organism Collector can be proud bearers and understand the essence and responsibilities of being certified. That these card bearers can easily have the capacity to adhere to doable sets of wise practices without the need to shoot for the stars to practice their trade with honesty and dignity. Without a need of a babysitter to forged records and data. We hoped it would create a chain of impacts that would help reform the industry, implement sustainable livelihoods, reduce mortality through the chain of custody, and attain conservation goals. We also expected that MAC staff would respect other organizations and not bully their way into areas they do not belong or sites MAC had no hand in developing. But, lately your organization has even become worse than ever. Maybe it is because it is an act of desperation.
After I left your organization way back, for refusing to be swayed into following ridiculously expensive methodologies that would not achieve the goals in a manner where an area/collectors or exporters can be left mostly on their own after giving them the right trainings and methods, I had a gentlemen’s agreement with the former MAC Country Director in the Philippines. Give the MAC a chance to prove things could be done right by not being too overly critical. A few constructive criticisms would do just to keep the pressure on to help influence positive changes within the organization. In short give MAC a breathing space to evolve positively. If given this breathing space I was assured things would change for the better. With MAC’s funds they would be able to reach more areas to do faster reform and conservation; which to me was very logical. I also agreed that I would not interfere in MAC’s sites whether it was in Indonesia or in the Philippines. Again, this was just common sense. In short the Philippines MAC Country Director wanted MAC to change and succeed. For me any organization that succeeded in their programs in an ethical manner was good enough. It does not have to be us.
As a rule we usually do not meddle with other organizations at their sites and if we deem it needed, we ask for permission from the organization that has been working there first. It is a matter of principle, values, and practices to which we adhere. You do not enter a house without permission of the owner or abuse it afterwards. We usually discuss our plans and goals with the other organization. We seek ways to work together and if we find out that we cannot work together, having opposing methods and agendas, we do not attempt to start work at these sites. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. So, it would actually be wise to augment each other to achieve things faster or stay out of each other’s way if it would cause setbacks. There are other sites anyway.
We know very well those organizations, which try to compete at the same site, create huge setbacks to the programs of both opposing organization and a waste of precious funds. What is worse is that it destroys the values of the people in the communities especially when moneyed organizations like yours present and lavish poor subsistence fishermen and unapprised officials and leaders with false and rosy promises about the availability of vast funds to sway them to your side. The effect of this is that the beneficiaries do not strive to do the right thing, but instead keep saying yes and go into a play acting mode to get as much as they can of the dole being provided. They devise ways of keeping their destructive practices away from prying eyes. We also know for a fact that these promises you give are sadly all empty, setting back real reform more. The East Asian Seas and Terrestrial Initiatives (EASTI) on the other hand comes in with no promises that we cannot deliver. We have well thought out plans in place, based on lessons we have learned. In short, we get to our goals without frills and fanfare.
So it is very normal for us not to interfere with your organization’s sites no matter how impractical you do things that results in bigger setbacks and destruction. We try to turn our heads the other way even if your actions drives all bad practices deeper underground with your ignorance and lack of in-depth understanding of the multifaceted factors that come into play in creating the many problem this industry has been experiencing. We do not lose sleep over your GREENWASHING activities anymore. It is going to be your LEGACY to the human race.
The contrast between your organization and ours is that you have to justify your intrusion by spreading rumours that we are opposing you in our very own work sites because we are envious of your funds that are “flowing out of your ears”. Unlike your organization we do not pirate staff or deliberately hire them away to purposely sabotage another organization’s program. We have the capacity and skills to train and develop our own people the right way. It is a pity you do not know how to train your own staff. We do not need to grab ideas or achievements and claim them to be ours because we can come up with better less expensive original ideas and a system that works. Although you do all these deplorable things, it is a pity that you are still unable to make a true success. Instead, you make false claims of success through publicity and write-ups and in the end do your “MEA CULPA”. Isn’t it shameful and pathetic that you have to resort to all these things? Yet, it is not rocket science. It just takes a lot of hard honest work, a lot of networking, deeper understanding, experiments, and common sense.
We are working at our own sites in Indonesia and the Philippines. With Telapak (an Indonesian NGO) we developed methods and sets of practices that address a whole set of problems including those that were compounded by your organization, which left things far worse than they were in the past. Claiming problems have been solved is not true, just because you and your cronies say so. We have proven time and time again that we can reduce mortality through the chain of custody. We have developed methods and protocols for shipping and handling that are being religiously followed and implemented. We have developed means for transferring technology, knowledge, and skills to less educated villagers and empowering them. We do not want you at our sites because it destroys our goals. Your organization is more of a burden to a real reform movement than an asset.
For example, the Indonesian Country Director for MAC, brazenly gave out MAC Certification cards to wide-eyed collectors, who eventually found out the cards were good for nothing. Some certification card was translated from English to Tagalog (a Philippine national dialect) and not into the Bahasa dialect spoken in Indonesia. These poor Indonesian collectors scratched their heads with confusion. One of them showed me the card and asked me what the Tagalog phrase was all about. They do not read English and do not understand Tagalog. It is a nice looking certification card, but WHAT MESSAGE WERE YOU SENDING BY GIVING OUT THIS KIND OF CARD? It is a very negative and insulting message. If you do not understand the negative message you are sending to these collectors then you all have no business trying to certify or do community work and reform. It would be better if you pay yourselves lucratively but stay out so reforms can take hold faster. (Card attached in this letter)
As I said we do not generally meddle. But when we do take some action, it is in a constructive manner, because it is hurting our own work and goals. We take time to tell you directly the problem you have and never work behind your backs the way you do to us. A very classic example: Your fish coming from MAC CERTIFIED organism collectors die like flies defeating the purpose of MAC’s goals and the conservation efforts. I could understand the Banggai cardinals all dying because your staff do not know how to teach the collectors how to collect and care for this species, which is simple enough if you know how. But, why should Ocellaris clownfish be dying like flies? (Picture attached). For a while early this year, we had overseas buyers who came to the community holding facility in the village of Les (in northern Bali) who requested MAC Certified fish. We gave in thinking that maybe things in Indonesia would be better. Fish were purchased from MAC-Certified sites in northern Bali and exported overseas. The buyers came back to us claiming heavy (about 30%) dead on arrival (DOA) and heavier (60%) dead after arrival (DAA). Worse yet, the dead fishes emitted a very foul odour. What do we expect? These poor exotic animals had rotting internal organs (probably due to exposure to cyanide), even when they were still alive and were just in the process of dying. We also purchased net-caught fish from collectors living in Les village who were MAC Certified. These fishes were held in the community holding facility, where we generally experience little or no mortality (<3%) on the fish obtained from our collectors. The fish obtained from the MAC Certified collectors and middlemen experienced 30-40% mortality and even more. We gave up.
So inhuman... so we had to create our own sets of practices and retrain needed collectors. As the “ONLY WORLD EXPERTS” problems that were right before you very eyes you all missed. That is embarrassing and a great waste of money because it just shows your people do not know what they are doing. To undo what you have done is a huge task that we rather do our own sites. We are still vacillating on whether we want to do your sites where we have had several request from the people and the authorities concern for assistance.
When I told the MAC Indonesian Country Coordinator the problem about fish dying what did she do? She went into a defensive mode and with a straight face told me that there were no MAC certified collectors at that site when in fact I knew that the MAC had almost 100 collectors there and that one MAC-Certified collector even was caught using cyanide. Why lie? Just solve the problem, if you know how to do it. The moment she became defensive, I knew MAC and its cronies was a hopeless case.
The MAC Indonesian Country Coordinator went to the village of Les trying to ask them what my methods of teaching were and where I obtained funds. She went behind my back when all she had to do was ask me politely. I sent her an email of this incident? Did she not notice that when she was in the village the staff all disappeared and locked the door of the holding facility, when she started asking questions? They brought all their work home while she was there. Again very embarrassing for an outfit supported by big funding agencies that should be ashamed for funding your organization because they are a party to these farce and attempt at GREENWASHING.
The Indonesian MAC Country Coordinator also went to another of our sites near Denpasar (in southern Bali) offering nets and promising the heavens. She should have asked us first what we have as goals for this site. Most of the coral reefs in this site have been destroyed by coral mining. Have you seen what the present conditions are after so much coral mining there in the past? (Picture attached). We do not want to teach them the use of barrier-net collection techniques there. Only a few species of shrimps and gobies that can be caught with scoop nets at the community coral farm and rehab centre. You are not doing your homework. We want this area to be where we do our experiments in soft corals, maintaining our mother stocks and a micro-enterprise of artificial live rocks. We are in the process of teaching these people and developing their sense of ownership and responsibilities. In short they have not fully developed yet and here you are all trying to grab, meddle, and promise. Your organization must be hungry for achievement. My suggestion is for all of you (MAC people) to go to your own sites and destroy it as you have done to other sites.
I would like this to be very clear. The sites we have Philippines and Indonesia are our laboratories in terms of applying our own methods of empowerment, conservation, and gender mainstreaming. Our wealth is not monetary in nature and we do not hunger for funds and pay ourselves outrageous salaries. Nor are we too ambitious to embark on a project for which the goals cannot be attained. We are contented with our gains in the communities we work in. We have so many lessons learned and experiences acquired that we can apply in other sites and countries we work and will be working in the near future. We also learned from the collectors about your colossal mistakes and what not to do. We are please with ourselves when we send fish to the buyers of these communities and the buyers tell us shipments practically have no DAA even after 60 to 70 hours of transit. We attained these objectives through hard work and willingness to listen and network. We are full of pride of our “LES FISH”. We are proud that we can guarantee full replacement of expensive fish and DOA’s over 5% on the bread and butter species as long as the Western importers the community micro-enterprise deals with follow our sets of acclimatizing protocols. When we see the villagers proud of the way they take care of their products and doing the right thing we rejoice with them and try to teach them more complex matters. We take them out of their decades of traditional practices and outlook; which is hard to do. It inspires us all that these successes push them to cope with new challenges and enthusiasm to learn more. We have brought our study sites into a dimension that no one expected can be attained. This gradual change we are introducing has several good impacts and your organization is trying to derail these changes by meddling.
It is none of my business if funders like to waste their money on you. Just PLEASE STAY OUT of our work sites! We do not need your organization’s help or funds. Your organization is more of a liability.
With whatever respect is left,
Ferdinand Cruz
After I left your organization way back, for refusing to be swayed into following ridiculously expensive methodologies that would not achieve the goals in a manner where an area/collectors or exporters can be left mostly on their own after giving them the right trainings and methods, I had a gentlemen’s agreement with the former MAC Country Director in the Philippines. Give the MAC a chance to prove things could be done right by not being too overly critical. A few constructive criticisms would do just to keep the pressure on to help influence positive changes within the organization. In short give MAC a breathing space to evolve positively. If given this breathing space I was assured things would change for the better. With MAC’s funds they would be able to reach more areas to do faster reform and conservation; which to me was very logical. I also agreed that I would not interfere in MAC’s sites whether it was in Indonesia or in the Philippines. Again, this was just common sense. In short the Philippines MAC Country Director wanted MAC to change and succeed. For me any organization that succeeded in their programs in an ethical manner was good enough. It does not have to be us.
As a rule we usually do not meddle with other organizations at their sites and if we deem it needed, we ask for permission from the organization that has been working there first. It is a matter of principle, values, and practices to which we adhere. You do not enter a house without permission of the owner or abuse it afterwards. We usually discuss our plans and goals with the other organization. We seek ways to work together and if we find out that we cannot work together, having opposing methods and agendas, we do not attempt to start work at these sites. We all have our own strengths and weaknesses. So, it would actually be wise to augment each other to achieve things faster or stay out of each other’s way if it would cause setbacks. There are other sites anyway.
We know very well those organizations, which try to compete at the same site, create huge setbacks to the programs of both opposing organization and a waste of precious funds. What is worse is that it destroys the values of the people in the communities especially when moneyed organizations like yours present and lavish poor subsistence fishermen and unapprised officials and leaders with false and rosy promises about the availability of vast funds to sway them to your side. The effect of this is that the beneficiaries do not strive to do the right thing, but instead keep saying yes and go into a play acting mode to get as much as they can of the dole being provided. They devise ways of keeping their destructive practices away from prying eyes. We also know for a fact that these promises you give are sadly all empty, setting back real reform more. The East Asian Seas and Terrestrial Initiatives (EASTI) on the other hand comes in with no promises that we cannot deliver. We have well thought out plans in place, based on lessons we have learned. In short, we get to our goals without frills and fanfare.
So it is very normal for us not to interfere with your organization’s sites no matter how impractical you do things that results in bigger setbacks and destruction. We try to turn our heads the other way even if your actions drives all bad practices deeper underground with your ignorance and lack of in-depth understanding of the multifaceted factors that come into play in creating the many problem this industry has been experiencing. We do not lose sleep over your GREENWASHING activities anymore. It is going to be your LEGACY to the human race.
The contrast between your organization and ours is that you have to justify your intrusion by spreading rumours that we are opposing you in our very own work sites because we are envious of your funds that are “flowing out of your ears”. Unlike your organization we do not pirate staff or deliberately hire them away to purposely sabotage another organization’s program. We have the capacity and skills to train and develop our own people the right way. It is a pity you do not know how to train your own staff. We do not need to grab ideas or achievements and claim them to be ours because we can come up with better less expensive original ideas and a system that works. Although you do all these deplorable things, it is a pity that you are still unable to make a true success. Instead, you make false claims of success through publicity and write-ups and in the end do your “MEA CULPA”. Isn’t it shameful and pathetic that you have to resort to all these things? Yet, it is not rocket science. It just takes a lot of hard honest work, a lot of networking, deeper understanding, experiments, and common sense.
We are working at our own sites in Indonesia and the Philippines. With Telapak (an Indonesian NGO) we developed methods and sets of practices that address a whole set of problems including those that were compounded by your organization, which left things far worse than they were in the past. Claiming problems have been solved is not true, just because you and your cronies say so. We have proven time and time again that we can reduce mortality through the chain of custody. We have developed methods and protocols for shipping and handling that are being religiously followed and implemented. We have developed means for transferring technology, knowledge, and skills to less educated villagers and empowering them. We do not want you at our sites because it destroys our goals. Your organization is more of a burden to a real reform movement than an asset.
For example, the Indonesian Country Director for MAC, brazenly gave out MAC Certification cards to wide-eyed collectors, who eventually found out the cards were good for nothing. Some certification card was translated from English to Tagalog (a Philippine national dialect) and not into the Bahasa dialect spoken in Indonesia. These poor Indonesian collectors scratched their heads with confusion. One of them showed me the card and asked me what the Tagalog phrase was all about. They do not read English and do not understand Tagalog. It is a nice looking certification card, but WHAT MESSAGE WERE YOU SENDING BY GIVING OUT THIS KIND OF CARD? It is a very negative and insulting message. If you do not understand the negative message you are sending to these collectors then you all have no business trying to certify or do community work and reform. It would be better if you pay yourselves lucratively but stay out so reforms can take hold faster. (Card attached in this letter)
As I said we do not generally meddle. But when we do take some action, it is in a constructive manner, because it is hurting our own work and goals. We take time to tell you directly the problem you have and never work behind your backs the way you do to us. A very classic example: Your fish coming from MAC CERTIFIED organism collectors die like flies defeating the purpose of MAC’s goals and the conservation efforts. I could understand the Banggai cardinals all dying because your staff do not know how to teach the collectors how to collect and care for this species, which is simple enough if you know how. But, why should Ocellaris clownfish be dying like flies? (Picture attached). For a while early this year, we had overseas buyers who came to the community holding facility in the village of Les (in northern Bali) who requested MAC Certified fish. We gave in thinking that maybe things in Indonesia would be better. Fish were purchased from MAC-Certified sites in northern Bali and exported overseas. The buyers came back to us claiming heavy (about 30%) dead on arrival (DOA) and heavier (60%) dead after arrival (DAA). Worse yet, the dead fishes emitted a very foul odour. What do we expect? These poor exotic animals had rotting internal organs (probably due to exposure to cyanide), even when they were still alive and were just in the process of dying. We also purchased net-caught fish from collectors living in Les village who were MAC Certified. These fishes were held in the community holding facility, where we generally experience little or no mortality (<3%) on the fish obtained from our collectors. The fish obtained from the MAC Certified collectors and middlemen experienced 30-40% mortality and even more. We gave up.
So inhuman... so we had to create our own sets of practices and retrain needed collectors. As the “ONLY WORLD EXPERTS” problems that were right before you very eyes you all missed. That is embarrassing and a great waste of money because it just shows your people do not know what they are doing. To undo what you have done is a huge task that we rather do our own sites. We are still vacillating on whether we want to do your sites where we have had several request from the people and the authorities concern for assistance.
When I told the MAC Indonesian Country Coordinator the problem about fish dying what did she do? She went into a defensive mode and with a straight face told me that there were no MAC certified collectors at that site when in fact I knew that the MAC had almost 100 collectors there and that one MAC-Certified collector even was caught using cyanide. Why lie? Just solve the problem, if you know how to do it. The moment she became defensive, I knew MAC and its cronies was a hopeless case.
The MAC Indonesian Country Coordinator went to the village of Les trying to ask them what my methods of teaching were and where I obtained funds. She went behind my back when all she had to do was ask me politely. I sent her an email of this incident? Did she not notice that when she was in the village the staff all disappeared and locked the door of the holding facility, when she started asking questions? They brought all their work home while she was there. Again very embarrassing for an outfit supported by big funding agencies that should be ashamed for funding your organization because they are a party to these farce and attempt at GREENWASHING.
The Indonesian MAC Country Coordinator also went to another of our sites near Denpasar (in southern Bali) offering nets and promising the heavens. She should have asked us first what we have as goals for this site. Most of the coral reefs in this site have been destroyed by coral mining. Have you seen what the present conditions are after so much coral mining there in the past? (Picture attached). We do not want to teach them the use of barrier-net collection techniques there. Only a few species of shrimps and gobies that can be caught with scoop nets at the community coral farm and rehab centre. You are not doing your homework. We want this area to be where we do our experiments in soft corals, maintaining our mother stocks and a micro-enterprise of artificial live rocks. We are in the process of teaching these people and developing their sense of ownership and responsibilities. In short they have not fully developed yet and here you are all trying to grab, meddle, and promise. Your organization must be hungry for achievement. My suggestion is for all of you (MAC people) to go to your own sites and destroy it as you have done to other sites.
I would like this to be very clear. The sites we have Philippines and Indonesia are our laboratories in terms of applying our own methods of empowerment, conservation, and gender mainstreaming. Our wealth is not monetary in nature and we do not hunger for funds and pay ourselves outrageous salaries. Nor are we too ambitious to embark on a project for which the goals cannot be attained. We are contented with our gains in the communities we work in. We have so many lessons learned and experiences acquired that we can apply in other sites and countries we work and will be working in the near future. We also learned from the collectors about your colossal mistakes and what not to do. We are please with ourselves when we send fish to the buyers of these communities and the buyers tell us shipments practically have no DAA even after 60 to 70 hours of transit. We attained these objectives through hard work and willingness to listen and network. We are full of pride of our “LES FISH”. We are proud that we can guarantee full replacement of expensive fish and DOA’s over 5% on the bread and butter species as long as the Western importers the community micro-enterprise deals with follow our sets of acclimatizing protocols. When we see the villagers proud of the way they take care of their products and doing the right thing we rejoice with them and try to teach them more complex matters. We take them out of their decades of traditional practices and outlook; which is hard to do. It inspires us all that these successes push them to cope with new challenges and enthusiasm to learn more. We have brought our study sites into a dimension that no one expected can be attained. This gradual change we are introducing has several good impacts and your organization is trying to derail these changes by meddling.
It is none of my business if funders like to waste their money on you. Just PLEASE STAY OUT of our work sites! We do not need your organization’s help or funds. Your organization is more of a liability.
With whatever respect is left,
Ferdinand Cruz
