Hi ,
How can a hobbyist help out with this program?
The Hobbyist will be able to help several ways:
CORL is a Not-For-Profit Buis. any donation to it will help, I assure you that any money sent will go to CORL, (we are currently waiting on our final 501-c-3 status). CORL is in need of monetary
Donations at this time, donations can be made using the form on our web site
www.corl.org
Seeing that I just tapped out our bank account for attendance at the CRTF meeting and still have no $$ for the hotel lodging it’s needed badly. I will be presenting CORL’s Program Proposal for critical review by some of the CRTF members who have volunteered their time. Other well known scientist who have volunteered their help in the review process are Silvia Earle, Gregor Hodgson, Jean-Michael Cousteau, and John McManus. With luck the program will go forward into the funding search phase early in 2003.
The Program that we are setting forward into for review is a Coastal Resource Program that is designed to become self funding from products the Coastal Resource Centers and villages Produce and sell to the Marine Ornamental industry. The Ratio that CORL uses to do this is 1 to 10, so each time you buy a CORL product 10 pieces of coral will be placed on the reef for that village's "CORL farm". The proceeds from the sale of the coral to the wholesalers and distributors is used for the village’s coral reef restoration program and the cost of operating the program.
Every coral product a CORL project produces will meet or surpass the standards of practice as set by the Marine Aquarium Council.
The hobbyist will also be able to directly contribute to the village CORL farm by the purchase of a Mariculture Certificate that can be easily downloaded via the internet or by the means of sail mail.
This low cost certificate will be somewhere between 1.50 and 2.00, 75% of the proceeds from this certificate will go back to the CORL farm where the coral was grown, 25% will go to maintaining the database. Any hobbyist who receives a fragmented colony from a CORL farmed coral will also be able to get a certificate of origin that will be similar to list the certificate given for the original maricultured coral.
The cost of this secondary certificate will be 1.00 and the income will once more to the Village and database at the same ratio.
The hobbyist can also help by supplying the CORL database with info about their aquarium and the organisms they keep. The names and address of those who supply info will be kept private and the information gathered into this searchable data base will be free to all who wish to do research on the MOI and hobby.
We have started a Ornamental Marine Species Data Base also, If hobbyist want to help with it they are welcome to join in on this effort. We currently are working on the fish section and you can give your info for individual Ornamental Marine Species Data Sheets on the CORL web site. These OMSDS will be free to all who need to use them via the web site. IN the future CORL will produce a low cost CD series that will have all the OMSDS on it.
CORL is also working on a new Marine Hobbyist video/DVD which will provide the new hobbyist with information on how to correctly set up and maintain marine aquariums.
So there’s lots of things you the hobbyist can do to help
Visit the CORL web site
And Thanks to all who help with the survey
The reefs we aim to save are not only the wild ones but the ones located in your home also.
My talk on #reefs on Oct 6th will cover a lot of what I’ve posted here but If you have questions I will be glad to answer them after the talk.
Thank you
Mike King
Environmentalist, Marine Hobbyist, and a former LFS owner
Been there , done that,…… hey we can do that a better way……..
