Solomon Islands and the Marine Aquarium Trade

[Ret_Talbot]

Hi, All. I'm researching an article on Solomon Islands exporters and the health of the Solomon Islands fishery as a whole. Is anyone familiar with the situation on the ground in the Solomons? Is SIME still in operation, or is Aquarium Arts doing the majoritry of the business (I know the two companies had worked together in the past). Any thoughts, feedback, data, anecdotes, etc. would be greatly appreciated. -Cheers

 

[Ret_Talbot]

WoW! So nobody knows anything about the Solomons?

 

[Anonymous]

SI is a touchy subject. Why not contact the one you know is still doing it? AA.

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Thanks, Gresham. Sorry for my ignorance, but I though SI had reaaly stabalized in terms of the marine aquarium trade. I've had a hard time connecting with AASI, but I will continue to try.

 

[Anonymous]

Stabilized? How? Look into how many flights they can get cargo on......start there

Hard time contacting AASI? Sure makes me rethink the term stabalized. Think of it this way, a supplier with enough supply would answer the phone in a heart beat as a new customer could be handled

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Okay. When I said stabalized, I was thinking of governmental stability which has led to better business practices and some oversight in the Islands and more training of collectors. Also, shipments now do come in direct (although some through Fiji) to LAX. I can talk directly with AAUS in Los Angeles, but I'm trying to get the story from on the ground in SI.

 

[JeremyR]

I'm guessing nobody that regularly posts here knows more than Dave about the subject.. you might have to go on a factfinding tour

 

[Ret_Talbot]

Indeed! What fun, right?

 

[Fish_dave]

It is no secret about what is going on in the Solomons. Freight is the big problem. Every week boxes are packed and not uplifted by the airlines. Freight space is limited and there is more demand than the few boxes that can be sent out every week.

SIME and Aquarium Arts Solomon Islands are pretty much the same company. One is locally owned and has permission to collect wild corals. The other is foreign owned and has permits to collect aquarium fish and farmed corals. Aquarium Arts has the export permit and everything is exported by them. They buy locally from SIME and export it all as one shipment. The fish divers were trained in Australia many years ago and there are also two philippino divers there with netsman certificates who are doing training and overseeing fish collecting. Corals are collected only by reef owners who have access to their own land. Coral collection occurs over a very wide range of habitat.

You are welcome to go down and investigate for yourself. I would be happy to introduce you to the collectors and you could go out with them. Just be prepared for a VERY primitive experience. No running water, no bathrooms, food that you do not recognise, unsafe conditions, malaria, and tons of bugs. Also some of the best reefs that you will see in the world.

Best regards,

Dave

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for chiming in Dave. Who gives out "netsman certificates" you speak of?

 

[Jaime Baquero]

GreshamH,

Those are Filipino divers who got the Netsman certificates from Haribon....long time ago. There is a good number of fish collectors that took the net training from Haribon/OVI(IMA) and now are teaching other collectors around the world how to do the thing right. Those are excellent fish collectors. I feel good by knowing it.

jaime

 

[clarionreef]

Thanks for the compliment jaime.
steve

 

[Anonymous]

GreshamH,

Those are Filipino divers who got the Netsman certificates from Haribon....long time ago. There is a good number of fish collectors that took the net training from Haribon/OVI(IMA) and now are teaching other collectors around the world how to do the thing right. Those are excellent fish collectors. I feel good by knowing it.

jaime

So, ones trained by Steve?

 

[clarionreef]

Gresham,
Haribon is the group that paid me to train... which I did along with my own team of trainers developed 10 years before.
When I ran out of the netting material I brought after 5 months...I complained that we cannot continue training without it...and needed more.
They refused to supply or buy more. We had much dialogue.
I lost the argument.
I had to resign rather then go along with the charade and they continued the project with 1 and a half inch mesh gill netting.
[ Later they claimed that a lack of netting was to blame for the failures!!.]

There is a history of initial successes in this reform thing that always sees the office administrators trying to save small amounts of money by cutting back on the netting budgets for some reason.
They just won't let the divers have anything to work with and leave them with no recourse but to return to cyanide. Being against the sabatoge of the project I worked on for years with Dr McAllister of the Canadian IMA.... I couldn't bring myself to just go along with ruining it....and not rock the boat.
"That makes one not a team player I supose."

As a commercial collector, I just wish they would've just cut some office supplies and left us the netting material to work with.
But alas, they were very urban people and not aquarium people, so our needs to create success were not understood.
Steve
PS.
I had the sales rep of the Japanese netting material company Technets in Manila to meet with them as well as the exporters....they both turned him and his products down.
Steve

 

[Jaime Baquero]

GreshamH,

Those are Filipino divers who got the Netsman certificates from Haribon....long time ago. There is a good number of fish collectors that took the net training from Haribon/OVI(IMA) and now are teaching other collectors around the world how to do the thing right. Those are excellent fish collectors. I feel good by knowing it.

jaime

So, ones trained by Steve?

GreshamH,

No doubt that Steve did a good job training the first group of collectors while he was working for the Haribon-IMA project.

A good number of net trained collectors were product of the Netsman project. However, it must be underlined that after Steve left the Philippines, after the first phase of the project, we had 4 more phases. Those trained collectors became trainers and trained more fisherfolks.

One individual that merits lots of credits is Romulo Purgatorio (Meme), a fisherfolk from Bolinao, who is one of the best of his kind. He was part of the Haribon/OVI team for years. He has trained hundreds of fish collectors to use nets instead of cyanide not only in the Philippines but abroad. It is also important to mention that excellent community organizers were product of the projects conducted by Haribon. They knew from the beginning that the problem in the Philippines was more than just simple net training. Reputation of those community organizers is recognized not only in the Philippines but abroad in neighboring countries.

Many of the trained collectors kept in mind the good lessons learned and became masters of net collecting training. This was an NGO initiative producing good results which we can see many years after the trainings took place. Filipino fisherfolks are the best in the world.

Jaime

 

[Anonymous]

Um thanks for the rehash guys :lol: I don't know how many times I've heard those stories I know the project, I know Meme (hopefully he gets out of Tonga where he is being held "captive" by the exporter ) and I know the details. I was just wonderring if the two in SI where ones Steve trained himself Can we get a "move on" please

 

[clarionreef]

Well Gresham,
If they used barrier nets and hand nets in their training...they're probably mine because unlike most groups, I could not ever net-train without the basic...er...nets.
Steve
PS.
I understand Haribon had a hard time finding the basic nettings [ except for gill-nets] according to the IDRC [funder] report.
[see below]

The netsman team has stepped up its efforts in sourcing out fine-meshed nets for the consumption of the trained aquarium fish gatherers. Local manufacturers have been contacted and approached but not one is capable of or produces barrier and knotless nets because they claim that there is no market for these.

 

[PeterIMA]

I visited the Philippines in 1989 on behalf of IMA-Canada and met with Haribon to set up the Netsman Project (a joint project between Haribon and IMA-Canada funded by the International Development Research Corporation-a Canadian funding agency). Haribon agreed to a budget that included $5,000 for netting. Steve was hired as a consultant by IMA-Canada to conduct net-trainings with the training team provided by the IMA.

After funds were received from IDRC, Haribon spent the funds earmarked for netting elsewhere, instead of providing it to the collectors. Steve objected to this and other ways the project was mismanaged by Haribon. Dr. McAllister became the head of IMA-Canada and tried to deal with the problem. But, as IDRC told me, the main group in charge was Haribon and IMA-Canada could not tell them what to do.

I agree that Romulo (Meme) Purgatorio is an excellent trainer and it is to Steve's credit that many of the collectors he trained are still using nets. I would also agree with Jaime that the programs run by Ocean Voice (formerly IMA-Canada) were important programs that have helped to reform many collectors. With the right economic incentives many of these collectors are still willing to use nets.

Peter

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Um thanks for the rehash guys :lol: I don't know how many times I've heard those stories I know the project, I know Meme (hopefully he gets out of Tonga where he is being held "captive" by the exporter ) and I know the details. I was just wonderring if the two in SI where ones Steve trained himself Can we get a "move on" please

 

[Ret_Talbot]

It is no secret about what is going on in the Solomons. Freight is the big problem. Every week boxes are packed and not uplifted by the airlines. Freight space is limited and there is more demand than the few boxes that can be sent out every week.

SIME and Aquarium Arts Solomon Islands are pretty much the same company. One is locally owned and has permission to collect wild corals. The other is foreign owned and has permits to collect aquarium fish and farmed corals. Aquarium Arts has the export permit and everything is exported by them. They buy locally from SIME and export it all as one shipment. The fish divers were trained in Australia many years ago and there are also two philippino divers there with netsman certificates who are doing training and overseeing fish collecting. Corals are collected only by reef owners who have access to their own land. Coral collection occurs over a very wide range of habitat.

You are welcome to go down and investigate for yourself. I would be happy to introduce you to the collectors and you could go out with them. Just be prepared for a VERY primitive experience. No running water, no bathrooms, food that you do not recognise, unsafe conditions, malaria, and tons of bugs. Also some of the best reefs that you will see in the world.

Best regards,

Dave

Thank you so much, Dave. I'm really eager to learn more about the trade, and I'm working on funding for the trip. I'll be back in touch. Cheers.