A Great Opportunity for the Community to Give Back

[clarionreef]

dood..I mean dude!

ooops,
You mean its not Gresham afterall?

i dont think u want to stir me to add more of my concerns considering i gave u a buy by bowing out of this scam, oh i mean thread...
good read...
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopi...r=asc&start=40

2nd page last post...and 3rd page

Dude!
Thats not us!
You read it all wrong. They are talking about a different project in Bali run by totally different people!
You are funnier then Gresham!
Go back to sleep!
Steve

 

[ellebelle]

(I knew you weren't one of the exporters, but I thought it was an important point of clarification for others. )

Also, thank you for your procedural clarifications - as you can see, we haven't really had any of these kind of discussions on these boards before.

 

[clarionreef]

Lissa
Actually, the dishonesty and incompetence that has typified so many "good cause pitches" from African famine relief to Tsunami victims in Bangladesh , [not to mention aquarium reform projects ] makes suspicion legitamate .
It should always be questioned but at the same time, should not paralyze us into rationalizing inaction on everthing.
Its like a bad date and then concluding that "all men are bad".

[Which then begs the resonse, "You've been with all of them?"]
Steve

 

[bad coffee]

Steve, for clarification sake, could you give a basic outline of the project? Lissa and I know the deal, but the rest of the thread (except Gresham) don't really know. All they know is you're asking for money for nets when you've already got a $1.3M budget. Why come to a few reef clubs for a couple o hundered when you've got over a million?

Have fish/inverts ever been collected in PNG before? (for wholesale MO)

Why is the gov't letting your program in?

How will techniques be taught? Will it be 'let's have lunch and see how net collecting works?' or will it be 'here's your net, now let's go catch some fish?'

How long will each season of collecting last, and how long will it be monitored?

How will you keep corruption out of the line of command? (as best you can)

Why have the other 'send money for nets' programs not worked in the end? (not to trash other people, just to point out how they went awry)

And in the end of all of it, how are WE (MR and other hobbyists) going to get these net caught fish?

You've said you want to be accountable to us. how do we find out what's going on once you've left? will there be monthly/quarterly collection reports? Will there be random cyanide testing?

B

 

[clarionreef]

more questions

Steve, for clarification sake, could you give a basic outline of the project? Lissa and I know the deal, but the rest of the thread (except Gresham) don't really know. All they know is you're asking for money for nets when you've already got a $1.3M budget. Why come to a few reef clubs for a couple o hundered when you've got over a million?
Heres the third time I am adressing this one;
The hobby buy-in is small but significant as it validates them as a participant, a shareholder if you will.
Have fish/inverts ever been collected in PNG before? (for wholesale MO)
never.
Why is the gov't letting your program in?
Because they need clean sustainable fisheries to feed their people and to earn foreign exchange. They already fish and have fished down their predators significantly ,ie. snappers, groupers, basses etc. and especially near the villages. This overfishing has increased tropical fish abundance and yet left them w/out much food fish income.

How will techniques be taught? Will it be 'let's have lunch and see how net collecting works?' or will it be 'here's your net, now let's go catch some fish?'
Total immersion in the village for weeks at a time with me and my training team of 2 hotshot Filipino trainers.. [ locals to be trained and take over eventually] 3 day orientation, two week practicum in the water ...and routine follow-up supervision for 3 years.

How long will each season of collecting last, and how long will it be monitored?
All year / three years.

How will you keep corruption out of the line of command?
If there is corruption, its us. We are the staff...we have the mandate to develop the trade. We define the TORS terms of reference, the issues, the cirriculum, the beginning price structure based on outside markets.
We are in it to win it.

Why have the other 'send money for nets' programs not worked in the end?
They only sent the cheap and easy stuff ie. handnet materials. Barrier nets are 90% of the costs of the full compliment of netting and have never been funded. This is exactly what I ment when I answered before about non field people taking the idea and running away with it. The other netfund was "borrowed" from the group AMDA and run prematurely and only partially. They simply didn't know the difference of netting materials.
Plus, you still have to train, follow up and supervise.

And in the end of all of it, how are WE (MR and other hobbyists) going to get these net caught fish?
Thru the normal supply chain...NY importers no doubt?

You've said you want to be accountable to us. how do we find out what's going on once you've left?
That will be three years at least. By then [ in one month actually] the habit, the method will have taken root as in other countries that have been started off right w/ nets.
Mexico, Vanuatu, Tonga, Solomons, Belize, Marshals, Tahiti, Fiji, Nicaragua, Brazil, Australia, Palau,Ponape,Hawaii, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Eetc.
will there be monthly/quarterly collection reports? Will there be random cyanide testing?
Reports can go forth monthly. We have our own internal reports ...I think they can go out to the public plus you can send your own folks to make reports a swell!
We will no cyanide to confuse fish with. The cyanide tests however have been very confusing. So far, they have been several grants and lots of money spent on CDTs. Their results have been unimpressive. CDTs would be welcome if they would be a real deal and not just another gravy train project that fuels salaries and no tests at the end.

Steve

 

[prattreef]

Thanks again for your considerable time answering these questions. We realize you have been intimately involved with these issues for decades and much of this seems so obvious to you. The truth is that most of us, myself included, know precious little about the MO trade, the cyanide legacy, the reform movements and their difficulties. I do know it is an expansive, expensive, complex and often bruising history.

Without asking you to rehash all of that--- it is all there on Reefs.org in the Industry Behind the Hobby Forum ( caution wear your seat belts) ---- there appears to be 2 major points that leave people unconvinced about this venture and I know you have tried to address both, but if you could expand a bit more on the following, it might help clear up the goals of the project.

1) Given the long list of places you just mentioned that already follow sound net caught fishery practices, why do we need another area opened at all? To some this just seems like a well couched way to rape more reef for profit. Wouldn't it be time better spent to educate hobbyists about choosing fish from these already existing areas and working towards reforming the cyanide areas? In short, "let them continue to ruin what is already ruined and leave the pristine stuff alone".

2) The case for hobbyist "investors" as a small but significant part of the plan is not hitting home with many people. What are you really after here? Making sure there is a public to buy the product once it is available? Has this been problematic in the past?

The truth is (and I think you know this) that I'm playing a bit of devils advocate here as I think I personally have a grasp of most of this and am very supportive. However, the message as you intend it has not come through as clearly as it needs to and as you move forward with this beyond MR to other potential hobbyist stakeholders you should know how the message is being received.

Randy

 

[clarionreef]

more news

Hi folks,

1) Given the long list of places you just mentioned that already follow sound net caught fishery practices, why do we need another area opened at all?
Its what local people want and anyone who comes over will see this clearly. I have already. They are anxious and waiting.
The fish diversity there has a lot of things you don't get elsewhere and since nearly all the blueface angels, majestic, blue tangs and clown triggers in the trade are cyanided, it is the only place remaining to get them done properly without killing the corals.
The corruption that everyones looking for already is what our industry is based on and what fills so many stores today. New Guinea can show a better way to do things.

To some this just seems like a well couched way to rape more reef for profit.
Thats the current system that we have. The system that stocks peoples tanks today. To some who need to find fault and evil in everything they behold, there are few things that could appease them, let alone the truth.
The trade is pretty much unsustainable as it now stands in the biggest supplier countrys and the hobby and trade have done little except reward the cyanide system with constant subsidy and hardly a thought.
The trade has come close to serious restrictions already and more will threaten soon in a Democratic white house when the US Coral Reef Task Force reconvenes.

Wouldn't it be time better spent to educate hobbyists about choosing fish from these already existing areas
Educating hobbyists from the field perspective is not easy. It seems alien to many. For things not understood, as in ballot measures for example; people often vote no. Tonga and Vanuatu are not Marshalls and Tahiti. Diversity circles the globe and changes w/ every degree of longitude.
The huge share of the trades fish come from S.E.Asia and two out of three of the sources are polluted with heavy trade in cyanide fish, which should be more of an embarrassment to people who care.

why not work towards reforming cyanide areas?
As in the past 25 years? When the green NGOs started covering for the cyanide trade, and when training programs mis-fired for so long without gaining traction the spare time to save a lot of reef was lost.
I was recruited for this job due to my opposition to the cyanide trade and constant campaign for doing it right.
In short, "let them continue to ruin what is already ruined and leave the pristine stuff alone".
Let them continue to "ruin what is already ruined???" Did you say that?
Why not give those places a beak and provide from elsewhere?
Besides....what pristine stuff?
As already explained well...the fishers are stuck within their own management areas...ie. turf...which are not the pristine areas.
They have to manage their already worked over areas and reap the tropical fish as ignored excess. The excess is a delightful consequence of lheavy predator control ie. fishing down the most popular food fish.
Tropicals are what they have left to make a living on. A point lost on many people in the West who do not see the peoples welfare as nearly as much an issue as the reefs that feed them.


2) The case for hobbyist "investors" as a small but significant part of the plan is not hitting home with many people. What are you really after here?
You mean besides taking Joe up on his invite and posting after he already started the thread??
Some netting material and witnesses to the coming training program.

Making sure there is a public to buy the product once it is available?
Huh? Why then pitch to a single group? We are still pretty much a secret and need to remain so until much work is finished. I did not approach the club. Joe Russo did and thought the club would like to be apart of something like this and help out some.
For his initiative, I am grateful.

 

[prattreef]

Thank you once again Steve. If anyone else has questions please go right ahead and ask Steve directly, I'm done as the go between.

For those of you who offered up donations, Brett has agreed to collect them and send them on. I'll be contacting you via PM about where to Paypal the funds. If anyone else wants in, you can post in this thread or PM me. Steve if you could send Brett the info on how to get the contributions to the DC headquarters that would be great.

Randy

 

[Thales]

We may be able to collect paypal from this coast and get it to Steve more easy like. At the same time, if Brett gets something else together, please let me know so we don't work at cross purposes. Yay!

 

[prattreef]

Which ever way he prefers. Thanks Rich.

 

[clarionreef]

Hi Guys
I sent the info to Brett already.
Thanks for the help and get ready to send someone to do some diving and witness some village trainings in April or so.
Steve

 

[jhale]

I just looked up the airfare, I might need to sell more frags to make that trip

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I know this is a loaded topic but with the collection process the way it is and expanding to PNG for collecting fish, has any part of this project addressed possibly setting up or looked into the possible breeding of fish in captivity and selling those instead of collecting off of the reef? It seems by expanding the collection in the wild, as stated numerous times on many boards and in many periodicals, are getting thin on the reefs. I know I am more likely to purchase captive bred fish than wild caught. I am also more likely to purchase home grown corals as well.

 

[Deanos]

The list of captive bred fish is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of species commonly available to aquarists. Alot of those species, we can't even tell male from female without an autopsy.

Breeding marine fish

 

[prattreef]

This is another very interesting topic that again entails complex issues of economics, consumer habits, history and in this case a real deficit in the knowledge of how to actually spawn and rear the vast majority of fish that sustain the industry.

 

[clarionreef]

urban imagining myths

has any part of this project addressed possibly setting up or looked into the possible breeding of fish in captivity and selling those instead of collecting off of the reef?
No...because we already know that if ORA cannot do it w/ all the considerable resources they had poured into this....
if Pro Aquatix couldn't do it w/ all the considerable resources they poured into this...
[except for small. fast growing and large egg laying species...a drop in the bucket of reef diversity...] what exactly would we be doing better then they?
It seems by expanding the collection in the wild, as stated numerous times on many boards and in many periodicals, are getting thin on the reefs.

IF collected stupidly, unsustainably...with poison and crowbars....yes!
But you have no idea how wonderful this story turns around when habitat is respected and spared thru proper collecting methodologies.

I know I am more likely to purchase captive bred fish than wild caught.
Only if you buy only some certain clownfishes, some dottybacks, some goby species....and then the list thins out big time.

I am also more likely to purchase home grown corals as well.

Now unlike fishes, coral farming can overprodude on certain groups and cause price declines. Wonderful that it is so easy to do now!

Fragging and planting coral stems out on the reef however, has nothing remotely to do with the breeding and growing out to market size angelfishes, butterflys, anglers, anthias, lions, puffers, triggers and wrasses.

If imagining the utopia of all tank raised fish were possible and true...why waste it on tropical fish breeding? I'd use my imagining gift to secure world peace and feed the hungry first.
I am not trying to be funny here.
The imagining myths have hurt us as they suggested to people that the reefs and the fisherman can all be avoided thru larboratory breakthrus that have so far cost millions and not come to pass!
Sure there is progress. Heck, you can sometimes buy 600 dollar flames if you want to from in Hawaii now.
But the level of progress you "hope for" is far harder to achieve in reality due to serious biological restraints in the laboratory technology of filtering, keeping off disease, feeding and rearing of microscopic larvae that all but the easy species have. [read Deanos link!]
Plus, the tank raised species are the very least of the species in trouble because they are.....the easy species, the fast growing, fast recruiting species! Why do you think they are the ones being bred?

If hollow, token victory takes the place of real achievment and makes people of good intention think "off base" and sidestep the conservation obligation out on the real reefs, then it is not helpful.
Putting fishers out of work diminishes the value of reefs and reef fishes to the them. Then the war on the reefs can really continue.
Only a fraction of villagers get jobs w/ tourism. Did anyone think otherwise?
Only a fraction of villagers will sit down and starve quietly. Did anyone think otherwise?
Most will scrape a reef clean of everything on it if there is no value to it and no reason to moderate, sustain and harvest properly. We bring in this ethic w/ the tropical fish deal and educate and reward people for adhereing to that ethic.
They have no other outside industries that will do this for them as local enterprises encourage a more aggressive fishing attitude.
The sea cuciumber trade has resultied in the diving deaths of hundreds of New Guinea fishers and is another reason the government wants alternatives, alternatives that train people.

You see, from their perspective, this is all about people.
From our Discovery channel, Animal Planet view, its all about coral reefs and precious animals.
Someone has to bridge the gulf between this chasm and unite the interests because ignoring it means you lose it all faster!
Generating and teaching sustainable practices that spare the coral to thousands of fisherfolk working daily save marinelife by amounts you cannot imagine.
Steve

 

[newfishie]

Steve, I'm in for $20.-. Good luck with the project. The eagerness of the locals is really what is the biggest argument for this project in my mind. Allowing us, the hobbyists, to get involved is great. We, as consumers, after all, are the reason for this trade and are indeed to blame if it is done the wrong way.
2 little questions for you:
- Can you post updates on the project during the 3 year period (maybe pics of how the reef changes; some data relating to number of fish collected etc.)
- How much (in % of global marine fish trade) is being collected by these sustainable netting methods now and do you see a positive trend? (also, how much would this project account for?)

 

[clarionreef]

Can you post updates on the project during the 3 year period (maybe pics of how the reef changes; some data relating to number of fish collected etc.)
Yes, we'll have reports upon reports because for some thats more important then reality.
More then that however, I want the media and the witnesses this time to see and report for themselves.
Groups reporting on and evaluating their own performance is too much a conflict of interest to mention and yet....is the way it is done!

- How much (in % of global marine fish trade) is being collected by these sustainable netting methods now and do you see a positive trend? (also, how much would this project account for?)
The Philippines and Indonesia [ including the huge cyanide center of Bali ] really run this trade. The huge majority of boxes per week going out to all your favorite whoesalers are from them.
All the other sources are still small when combined together and sprinkeled on top for variety.
Its ironic however that much of the talent in collecting elsewhere is done by net trained Filipinos!
They are welcome abroad and appreciated everywhere except in their own countries.
Since we trained these cyanide fishers into netsman in the 80's and early 90's, the rest of the so called reform groups didn't add any more netsman to the list! Thats because they simply didn't know how to field implement their projects after funding was awarded. Its a scandal but one that everyones just wants to go away.
Despite all the groups that have been granted funds to solve some of this, The Philippines is still not training divers! The grants get used up...and the fishers still don't get converted.
The places doing it right are not even 30% of the grand total I'd bet of all the boxes in from the Pacific every week.
Steve

 

[newfishie]

thanks Steve, very informative. Again, good luck with your project!

 

[clarionreef]

I just looked up the airfare, I might need to sell more frags to make that trip

I just got my ticket and all I can say is don't ever go in JANUARY!
3K ouch!
In March on....its a lot cheaper...by half.
Advanced purchase via Quantas and Air New Zealand have lots of sale fares.
On Air New Zealand, you can have a free stopover at Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Cook Island s or Tahiti!
I'm stopping by Tonga on the way back in March.
Summertime is probably the best fares of all...and you guys are welcome to come over!
Theres the bungalo on the tropical beach in the heart of the training area for a lot cheaper then if you book thru a travel tour...ie. like 175 a day. You could stay there and be one mile away from one of the primary villages to be trained.
Corals, soft corals, macro stuff, calm water, muck diving and the big reef all close by too!
Google Loloata Island Diving + Papua New Guinea !
Steve