The hobby can actually "SAVE" the reefs!

[Anonymous]

Mitch,

Do you think it possible that the small LFSs will work together to form a VIS (Vertically Integrated Supplychain)? Just imagine all those superclean fish being directly funnelled to you at wholesale prices?

-Lee

P.S. how about opening a real good branch of your LFS in Oklahoma City?

 

[dizzy]

Mitch,
Here's a Kleenex. You small time time retailers and importers keep singing the same sad song. Here it is, the MAC Bashers top 4 list: "MAC is gonna fail", "MAC is failing", "MAC has failed", "if MAC succeeds the small retailer is gonna be driven out of business", "if MAC succeeds the certified fisheries will fail under increased collection pressure". Which is it? Do you want MAC to fail or do you want MAC to succeed? Is the sky falling?

-Lee

Lee you got your facts all wrong. I have never once stated that MAC is going to fail. My concerns have always been based on how it will effect the industry if they succeed. From day one it has been very obvious that the people drawing up the standards had no knowledge of how the industry works. Mary Middlebrook and Elwyn Segrest both told me that they had advised MAC on certain issues (like the 1%DOA) and their advice had been ignored. The fake feasibility test cases are another issue. IMO the failure to develop a meaningful fish supply in the Philippines (after all this time) is proof that those in charge didn't really know what they were doing. This is all one big experiment and the marine dealer's livelihood is the guinea pig. We are the ones with the most to lose, and we have the right to question those who would seek to govern us. Now if you can go back through my post history and find one example where I said MAC will fail I'll be happy to eat my words. Stopping destructive fishing in the Philippines makes sense to me, bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy does not.

To answer your question. If MAC's success comes at the expense of the free market system I'd just as soon they fail. I'd rather just see the entire industry shut down than to see a system evolve that excludes the people who actually care about the stuff we sell.

 

[clarionreef]

Lee,
There is a huge difference between falling and failing.
Let me explain it to you;
If a working class marinelife dealer fails...he falls.

If MAC fails [ and confirms it by retreating from the frontlines of their mission]...they don't fall.

Oh maybe at the end of 10 years of non-ignition they might finally get cut-off by Packard and the mobs that engineer massive tax write-offs for their donars by funding failure, but for us regular dealers...its over much quicker.

In wholesale there is a saying..."You're only as good as your last shipment". If we fail...we fall...in about a month.

Thats why the commercial fish person or commercial fish collector is such a better worker and consultant for these issues then the "fish and field experts" we get from the Eco-Ngo community...who are fashioned out of nothing at all and foisted on the fish trade from fancy fiction and fed to funders for finance.
Steve

 

[Kalkbreath]

Kalk,
You're right. There are more damaging things to reefs in general then aquarium collecting. However, there are areas where aquarium collecting has killed more reef then the other things.

Every place hobby collection with juice takes place , Cyanide FOOD fishing also takes plave side by side. The vast numbers of Live food fish collected each year along with the dead food fish fishermen contribute to a far greater amount of white coral . What percentage of live food fish are not collected with cyanide?

I haven't eaten any dynamited fish lately.

But to Philippinos...... ending food fishing with cyanide , means placing their children at risk for starvation.

We are not the only ones to blame....The local lack of leadership and insensitive government always had a huge role in it.
Despite the peoples revolution, the new Democracy and the desk MAC maintains at BFARs head office, adjacent to the directors office...the lack of meaningful fishery extention services, training and law enforcement continue. Not everywhere, but in plenty of places.

It is easy for use to blame their government for not protecting its native resources.......BUT if our Feds asked US farmers to stop working the land , replant the pinetrees and return the wood lands back to the native state.........would you support it? Feeding the people is their governments first priority. Only when the citizens of PI can afford to purchase mainland based food products....{with coral proceeds} Food that was produced far away from the reefs .will the reefs be relieved of the pressures of supporting that nation.

PS. Kalk...if you change your avatar...people will be more accepting when you talk sense. You do talk sense but then do your very best to bury it in the rest of the presentation.

Actually I have been thinking of updating my portrait.......I have lost some weight and my hair is a lot longer now! :wink:

 

[clarionreef]

Kalk,
Predatory fish like most in the live food trade have been decimated in the heavy fish collecting areas and are no longer side by side.
The lack of predators is one thing that has allowed some fish to come back as well as they have.
Cyanide fisherman put poorer fisherman still deeper into poverty. Cyanide fisherman with capital to buy cyanide are less poor then their victims, the more numerous innocent fisherman who suffer from their activity. They are the ones who go hungry.
Seriously, much government activity is not in sincere service to feed or serve their people. It is to retire the self with maximum income and assets with a minimum collatoral damage from politics.
The Philippines has a listless mind boggling bureaucracy where on any given day there are 3,000 Manila office workers with their heads down at their desks, snoozing. This is an empiracle observation and a remnant of the Marcos era where government bloat helped keep allegience of the poeple.[by hiring them...cheap but in masses].
Horge, Ferdie etc. If things are changing for the better, let me know!
Sincerely, Steve