Tonga Thread on RC

[coralite1]

"aquaculture" rock that has to be injected with dye to make it look like it has coralline algae.

picturing someone with a hypodermic syringe injecting dye into a hard cured rock . . .

 

[clarionreef]

Guys,
The reference to crowbars was pertaining to the collection of flame hawks.
The dastardly and undeniable use of crowbars to destroy the ring of pocillaporas around Tongatapu is a serious crime investigated by none and not regarded by fisheries.
The crowbar has been the tool of choice of the whole lot of Tonga exporters to their lasting shame. However....all the energy seems to be for coral collecting here and not the harmful effects of incompetent fish collecting promoted and tolerated by these exporters.
With no flame hawks in Fiji there is no issue but in Tonga there sure is.
Is...not was.
Growing small corals for commercial purposes does not make one an environmentalist if the same company crowbars hundreds or even thousands of 40 year old, mature corals to get a hawkfish.


Steve

 

[Anonymous]

--

 

[reefreef]

Here is a video that shows guys using crossbars to get live rock in Fiji

Part.1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fCeK8fU ... re=related
part.2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVGH2TI6 ... re=related
part.3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIVvmZBp ... re=related

 

[JeremyR]

That's some good propaganda there. :roll:

On the other side of the coin, it's quite amusing to me to watch them go to all the trouble to make colored cement live rock, put it in the water, culture it, harvest it.. and then put it on the slow boat to LA to make sure all the stuff they cultured dies.

 

[dizzy]

Does anyone know who this Thalassa is? They obviously are not friends of the aquarium trade. I was very impressed with what a clean operation Larry Sharron is running in Vanuatu, but I don't think that was the purpose of the video clip. I think Tim McCloud there in Fiji needs to check his math. He said they are shipping 1.2 million kilos of live rock per year and paying the airlines between $4.5-5 million dollars just to ship the live rock. That would mean they are paying nearly $2 lb for air freight on the live rock. Is that accurate?

 

[JeremyR]

Probably not.. even when it was air freighted in, it sold for under $2.00 lb wholesale in LA.

 

[Anonymous]

Dunno about Fiji but 2 bucks a KILO is an insane freight price Some pay up to 5 a KILO.

 

[Raskal311]

Probably not.. even when it was air freighted in, it sold for under $2.00 lb wholesale in LA.

I dont really buy much wholesale rock but I would think $2/lb would be the stuff that comes by boat.

 

[Fish_dave]

Keep in mind that Tim would have been using fiji dollars in his statement. Kilos are kilos but often dollars are different dollars. Also this video was done a long time ago. Tim has been gone from Fiji for well over two years. In that time the freight rate out of Fiji has gone up dramatically. Also the U.S. dollar has tanked in that time making production costs and freight costs much higher than mentioned by Tim.

Dave

 

[clarionreef]

My but Tongas had a bit of history lately;

1st the pro-democracy demonstrations burn down the down town.

Then they knowingly and routinely pressure divers to dive too deep too often....killing one.

They continued to systematically bash in their shallow , reef-crest corals to catch flame hawks, ruining almost all the nearby habitat for the hawks.

Then they hold imported divers against their wills by cashing in their return tickets to the Philippines and refuse to pay them unless they stay on and keep working for food alowance but not pay.

Now live rock ban....?
Oh my goodness. Now its really getting serious. How will talent-free exporters ever get thru it? Thats the only thing they use local labor for.

The word has already spread in the Philippines to seek work elsewhere.
The primary fixer of visas and tickets will no longer help send them over.

Steve