Proactive agenda for making it happen

[clarionreef]

Hello everyone,
Instead of responding to threads on the never ending pieces of the puzzle to the Philippine reform problem, I'd like to advance a new way of thinking about it.
We've been pretty much educated on things thru controlled and limited information. We've been conditioned to yield to false options, to choose between falsehoods and to accept the lesser of the two or three evils routinely. Spinning mediocrity into acceptability is not acceptable any longer.
1] We've been told that training is hard, expensive and takes a long time.
This is not true. Aside from foreigners salaries, its surprisingly inexpensive. Its just that NGOs need to feed from a huge trough and require hundreds of thousands of dollars to proceed incompetently.

2] We've been told that net collecting is more difficult and less productive than collecting with poison. [ poison has its fans!]
Net collecting is the professionals choice in nearly every country for volume catches. Of course incompetent training produces backsliding and makes netting fishes appear hard.

3] We've been led to believe that something is being done to enable reform minded people to do business without "selling out" .
Don't hold your breath! Net caught blue tangs, blue face angels, clown triggers and so many other vital and important species ARE NOT forth coming as promised.
I WOULD LIKE TO APPEAL TO ALL WHO REALLY CARE ENOUGH TO BE EFFECTIVE...support the revitalization and redefinition
of the agenda being proposed by CORL and accepted by MAC. Initiatives to the Philippines to reset things will go forth this coming month.

Stay tuned for more to come...
Sincerely, Steve Robinson
President, AMDA

 

[clarionreef]

Hello,
Just a P.S.

THOUGH IT SEEMS CLEAR TO ME FROM A PRODUCERS AND A COLLECTORS POINT OF VIEW...
IT IS NOT FOR MANY OTHERS.
TRAINING , TEACHING AND IMMERSION IN VILLAGES TO GET TO THE HEART OF BADLY HANDLED AND ILLEGALLY CAUGHT, HABITAT KILLING FISH COLLECTING SOLVES PROBLEMS...
Cyanide testing and certification are what happens AFTER you solve the problem. Testing, by itself as we have seen for years now...doesn't solve the problem.
Certification, which we already have is a reality with two exporters. Both are in survival trouble as certification itself solved nothing and only kept them from dishonestly mixing cyanide fish...RUINING THEIR SALES.
TRAINING is the solution. Cyanide testing and certification are the
checking and verification phases operating under the assumption that the problem will already be solved. There is also an assumption that testing and certification will somehow compel training and net collecting to occur
"automatically".
Testing over the years never compelled anything except for the exporters to volunteer which fish they wanted tested and certification is paperwork which may or may not reflect truth...
Offering the end phase ie. checking and verifying as a solution is disingenuous and obtuse. Its also a guarantor of failure without a much larger concentration on actually solving the problem .[rather than looking at it later.]
First the horse... then the cart.
First walking...and then running...and then bicycling ...and then driving. First drivers training...then testing and liscencing.
First scuba training ...then testing and certification.
First top gun flight school...then testing and grading, verifying and checking accomplishment...lastly bombing Iraq.
First collector training...then testing and certification.

The mis-appropriation of priority and strategy here can only be a result of predjudice in favor of paperwork and things the project creators are familiar with. The lack of familiarity with the actual underwater work, the sea, the villages and the substance of it all leads one natually away from the core issue. The attempts to convert it into one palatable and understandable to the corporate mindset and the suburban marketplace have succeeded to a degree.
All we have to do now is the real part...the hard part...the part neglected all these years. The actual 'SOLVING" OF THE PROBLEM THRU VILLAGE FRIENDLY TRAINING.
Bored with that topic? Where do you think the fish come from?
Uncomfortable where its hot and no electricity? So? You shouldn't be there then...no problem. But don't pretend that this thing will be solved purely by marketing theory and western notions of propriety that seem to work in some seafood industry campaigns.
For 20 years on this, claims to achievement have far outdistanced actual achievement and will continue to do so until the village traing work gets priority and majority attention. When the problem is solved...then all the easy work can begin. Then the paper work and the lab work will bear relevance to something . Then the paper can be played with, collated and stapled, xeroxed, cover lettered , hardbound and offered as reality.
Then even real pro coral reef reformers can finally accept the process and take it seriously.

I can accept a need for testing and certification myself...but since that is to me the final 5% of the process, I have no interest in it until the real work is done first. I relize the real work is alien to most and hard to participate in. Its in the conversion of Philippine collectors speaking Tagalog or Visayan to a new way of making a living ...FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT. But just because you can't take part in it easily doesn't mean its not the road to Rome. It is the road.
When the work is done, the market can participate in a big way. In the meantime, support the training movement soon to be launched and join MASNA or AMDA or CORL and put your money where your mouth is.
Sincerely, Steve Robinson
Pres. AMDA

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Steve,

More training? I respect your point of view, but I do not agree. To date, there are, and according to Peter 1,900 collectors that took the training courses to use nets instead of cyanide. The trained collectors do not see the difference, in pesos, between the net caught and the cyanide caught fish. They are really dissapointed and unhappy to see that there is not an economic incentive for the extra effort. First thing, I consider, is to create the economic incentive at the exporters level ( they are the ones controling the trade), ensuring this way that trained collectors will see a difference and will stick to the use of nets to collect our fish. Training can resume when this condition is fulfill. If training resumes under the actual conditions we would have more frustrated, unhappy and dissapointed collectorts. How many more years will be needed to convert the cyanide users in net users? First training was in 1989, meaning that it took 14 years to train 1,900 (probably less than that).

The program developed and implemented in the Philippines with the Haribon Foundation was a very productive one, to the point that it can be said without doubt that the Philippines counts with excellent fish collectors using nets. Some of those became excellent trainers who have been capital in the implementation of many trainings developed by organizations as IMA. It is possible to form an excellent team of Filipino trainers to teach
other collectors the technique. They know how to do it.... and very well. You did a good job.

Some of the Filipino trained collectors from the Haribon/OVI program had worked in other areas as the Red Sea.

Jaime

 

[dizzy]

Jaime, Steve, Peter,

The more I learn about the situation in the Philippines the less I understand it. Why do people who have been trained to use nets go back to killing the corals to catch fish? Do these people not even have the most rudimentary understanding of the meaning of sustainability? Can they not see the damage they are doing? Do they not realize when the corals die, the fish go too? Do they not realize they are have to go further to catch fish when they use cyanide and kill the local reefs?

IMO opinion these fisherfolk need to take a good hard look at themselves. They are not without blame. They are making bad decisions and you seem to think more money will turn them from bad decision makers into good ones. I'm not so sure things work like that. What the fisherfolk need is self-respect and they will never have it if they know they are doing wrong.

I hope the fisherfolk get a little bigger piece of the pie and I hope this solves all the problems, but somehow the pessimist in me does not think it will be that simple.

 

[PeterIMA]

Reply to Steve, Dizzy and Jaime's comments,

First, I agree with Steve to some extent. We need to "Upgrade" the knowledge of Filipinos Net Trainers concerning some collecting techniques other than the use of barrier nets. For example, according to Steve and Ferdinand, the collectors need to be trained in the use of two handnets to collect certain species not collectable by barrier nets. This is needed to expand the variety of species that the net-collectors will be able to provide. With the full range of skills/methods the collectors will be able to supply as many species and more actual individual fish than the cyanide collectors. At present, according to Steve certain species are not being provided by the net-collectors to companies like Aquaium Habitat. This needs to change for the Net-Caught exporters to be competetive.

Ferdinand believes that there are presently enough collectors who know how to use nets. With economic incentives the number could rather quickly increase. I have stated it could go from about 200 part of the MAC program (there are doubtless other net-collectors not associatd with the MAC) to over 1000 in matter of months. That is not to say that furher net-collecting is not needed. It is. Hopefully, funds will be obtained and further net training will be conducted (by whomever gets the funding).

If there are over 4,000 collectors (some say as many as 8,000 but I doubt it) then all the collectors need to be trained to use nets. Or, some need to be trained in something else like mariculture of corals, giant clams, live rock etc. Personally, I believe there are presently too many collectors for the size of existing aquarium fish populations that are exploitable. Too many areas are badly degraded. If only the healthy reefs are used for collecting and the number of collectors on these sites is regulated, there will be a surplus of collectors that will need to be trained to do something else.

I agree with Jaime that the first priority is for the exporters to guarantee a financial incentive to collectors using nets for their fish over that paid to collectors caught with cyanide. The MAC program makes a number of demands on the collectors as part of its chain of custody. This takes more time and effort. Hence, there needs to be an incentive to compensate for this.

I see some hope. More on this later.

Peter Rubec

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Mitch,

There are two more links between the collector and the exporter, one is called the middlemen/middlewomen, these individuals go from place to place buying collectors' fish to be brought to their customers, the exporters. These people go to remote places , their moudus operandi is simple they say to the collector " I buy your fish if you buy my cyanide". The fisherfolks do not have any other way to move their fish to the market and are forced to do it, otherwise no food on the table. Collectors, they do care about their surrounding environment, but feeding their families is a priority specially when there is not another livelihood alternative.

The second link are the "managers/Boat Owners", they supply the cyanide directly to the collectors, the cyanide bottle is their fishing gear. As one of the major exporters in the Philippines described them to me, I quote " These people are one of the culprit. They tend to delay the delivery of caught fishes unless they reach the exact quantity that warrants them to make a truckload. Truck (Jeepney) charges are so high that a very minimun load spell no profit. Bags are being reox every 12 hours (depending on the value of the fish, high value yes, cheap fish no water change no reox at all),This goes on until the required quantity is met. For the meantime, the fishes are not being fed. This method sometimes takes a week or longer before the delivery is made". This is happening today in the Philippines.

As you can see the problem is very complex.

jaime[/i]

 

[dizzy]

Thanks Jaime,

That does help me to understand the problem a little better. It also demonstates a need to not just train more divers to use nets, but to also improve the handling after the capture. I have heard it is American companies that are sending the cyanide to the Philippines in the first place. Perhaps if these companies could be exposed for what they are doing, they might become a little more careful who they are selling the cyanide to. If faced by a major boycott (or at least a lot of negative publicity) by the American people, these companies might limit their sales to companies who have more legitimate uses for the cyanide. Some reporter needs to do a story that traces the cyanide back from the fisherfolk to the manufacture. Sounds like a good story for the LA Times.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks Jaime,

That does help me to understand the problem a little better. It also demonstates a need to not just train more divers to use nets, but to also improve the handling after the capture. I have heard it is American companies that are sending the cyanide to the Philippines in the first place. Perhaps if these companies could be exposed for what they are doing, they might become a little more careful who they are selling the cyanide to. If faced by a major boycott (or at least a lot of negative publicity) by the American people, these companies might limit their sales to companies who have more legitimate uses for the cyanide. Some reporter needs to do a story that traces the cyanide back from the fisherfolk to the manufacture. Sounds like a good story for the LA Times.

or maybe a hobbyist petition making them aware that 'this end of the chain' is aware of, and concerned with, the problem, and intends to observe it rather closely :wink:

 

[clarionreef]

Jaime,
You suggest that enough have already been trained to do the job if only they got a fair shake for their product. You have no idea how much I wish that were true. The critical lack of handnetting material for the last 10 years guaranteed that only outsiders are impressed with the so called achievements of Haribon, IMA and now MAC.
If you don't even understand what it means to not have handnets in the gearbag, how can you make the segue to the economic justice arena so quickly? They need nets and the full range of nets and training to insure that they will even have live coral to collect from and viable fish populations to benefit from.
This alone, already enables them to have a future without spending all their money on gas looking for someone elses reefs to plunder. Nets are easier and cheaper to use. All that is required is to not train badly and inadequately as did all the groups from Haribon on up until today. Yes Haribon embezzled every dime that wasn't nailed down and ruined the program you speak so well of. I was there. I designed the program, trained 450 divers in two months and resigned in protest over the embezzling and REFUSAL to supply netting materials to the trainings and the divers. Their actions were criminal and were repeated for some years. My emphatic dis-association with them after 5 months of their incompetence and thievery was to make sure that I am not to blame for the miniscule and mediocre results that followed!
We did not solve the problem!
We did not train the 2,500 divers as was the target.
We did not save any coral reefs.
We did not reform the aquarium trade!
We failed...and my training of 450 divers did not a spring make. If this is heralded as such an achievement...imagine if allowed to continue for the intended 2 years that was planned for.!
Accepting failure and mediocrity and weaving them into success later on is exactly the kind of treason to the issue I will not accept.
Your compliment does imply that an honest, well administered program could've done much good. I know that! Why do you think its so infuriating to relive the errors again and again?

Pegging this whole thing to "economic justice" for the fisherman is the kiss of death for the movement to save the reefs. Don't you know what kind of people the exporters are? Don't you relize how heartless and selfish they are? Do you really think they give a damn and especially without some serious imperative...ie. collective divers strike, trade shutdown or worse?
Justice for the divers can come but pegging it to wether to train properly or not insures there will be no training.
Its the year 2003 and still using bogus, padded and falsified numbers to sell past successes is terrible strategy.
We still can't get netcaught clown triggers, bluetangs or blueface angels to compete with. What kind of success is that!
Thats how you measure success. In the implementation of programs til the end, observable result and the beholding of at least enough netcaught variety to maintain even one single exporter and wholesaler! This has yet to happen!

Steve Robinson
Field Director for Project Compassion, Environmental Center of the Philippines, Haribon and others assorted eco fraud groups in the Philippines. "MILLIONS SPENT DOZENS TRAINED IS OUR MOTTO."

PS.

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Steve,

If you do not see any positive results because of the honest work that Haribon and OVI conducted in the Philippines, I won't argue on that. Personally, I was there and saw that collectors had learnt to collect fish with nets instead of cyanide. I dove with them and witness first hand how efficient they were doing their job. Net training was only one of the components of the different projects we had in the Philippines. Environmental Education and Sustainable Livelihoods were part of our agenda. Many community organizers were the result of that. Those people are spread across the country working with different organization helping the poor to get organize and to improve their livelihood. That is what I call a positive result.

Steve, the world didn't stop turning when you left the Philippines to the contrary people kept working training more collectors to use nets. It is possible that with time you have improved the fishing technique. Always we find the way of doing things faster and better.

What are the eco-fraud organizations?

jaime

 

[clarionreef]

Jaime,
' When a dishonest Haribon duped an honest but knaive OVI it was a sly and calculating affair. The $150,000. grant that I wrote with Dr. Mcallister to train for two years solid was embezzled to the point of criminality. The real trainers and my main trainer, Jerry Reyes were deleted or minimized to make way for free ones . College girls working for college credit who did not know fish from chickens. They burned in the sun, threw up in the boats and cut short the trainings every day.
After my own netting supply ran out and since Haribon refused to supply more, I had to disassociate myself from these eco frauds and resign. Haribon commited treson to the cause and took it to the bank. hence "eco fraud". What if I stayed? An accomplice at least to eco fraud, white wash, green wash or what ever is in vogue these days to call it. It was common in foreign aid and now its common in the organized pretense of solving environmental problems.
Worse or as bad as the cyanide dealers. What do you call the people who used 9-11 to raise money for the victims familys and absconded with it? Isn't the hottest place in hell reserved for them?
Well this net reform thing is important for people who want to do business with a clear conscience and not deal in cyanide fish but thanks to a decade and a half of virtual non performance, we still cannot get a netcaught blue tang. After a decade of training properly there is still NO HANDNETTING MATERIAL! To proceed without it is only half training insuring backsliding. What is that when promulgated in premeditated fashion year after year?
Ferdie the MAC and IMA trainer wants the netting that no one would provide all these years. Nots word but netting. Its on its way now.
Improvements...backsliding in most areas and net training in the depleted areas full of ordinary fish...close to Manila so all the tourists and eco groups can get back toi their hotels by evening.
Professional, commercial training is needed and the kind that can pass muster before professionals. This has not been done in a decade.
One step forward to ten backward is not a net positive. This problem should've been solved long ago. Its perpetuation is not something to be proud of.
Steve Robinson
AMDA president
PS. I dove a bit too in the Philippines. over a thousand hours underwater from 1981 to 1992

 

[Anonymous]

I'm confused. Why is it so hard to get hand netting material??

 

[mkirda]

I'm confused. Why is it so hard to get hand netting material??

Rover,

It is just not available. Plus, to a diver who is making 50 cents or 75 cents day, it is pretty expensive.

You have to understand something here that is difficult to understand for someone who hasn't been there: Even the poor bloke making minimum wage here in the US has around 15 times the earning power of one of the collectors.

Also, for one, proper netting isn't easy to find here. Trust me on that.
In US dollars, netting is cheap. Let's base it as $250 for 100 yards. That $250 is three months wages for the AVERAGE Filipino. Collectors often make only 40-60% of the wages of the average Filipino.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[Jaime Baquero]

Steve,

You didn't answer my question.

jaime

 

[mkirda]

Steve,

You didn't answer my question.

jaime

Jaime,

I think it was pretty clear he did- Haribon and OVI.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[PeterIMA]

This is in reply to Steve Robinson's post about the Haribon Net-Training. I find Steve's attack on Jaime to be in poor taste. As the person who went to the Philippines and who along with Dr. Don McAllister chose Haribon as the group to receive the grant, I wish to set the record straight. First the amount of money from the Canadian International Development Corporation (Canadian government) was in Canadian dollars. So the amount available ($150,000 CDN) was more limited than it might first appear in terms of US dollars. Secondly, the number of collectors trained is about what was budgeted for (16 trainings at 25 per session) is close to what was trained from 1990-1993 under the Netsman Project. The goal was never to train 2,500 divers under this program, the goal was to train 400 (then thought to be about half of the collectors).


Having helped draft the budget with Haribon, I was "disappointed" that some of the funds were spent on things not in the original budget. I would not call this "fraud". It was not under the control of Dr. Don McAllister (then the President of IMA-Canada). Steve did not have the right to complain about how the money was spent. Once the grant was obtained by Haribon with the help of IMA-Canada, they could decide how to spend it.


Steve Robinson was hired to train trainers by IMA-Canada under the grant (not to do all of the trainings). Furthermore, Robinson created lots of problems for Haribon and for OVI. He is as much to blame for what happened as Haribon. Despite internal bickering, that led to a schism (between IMA-USA and IMA-Canada) I would support Jaime in his stating that the collectors under the Netsman Program were well trained.

Jaime Baquero had nothing to do with the Netsman Project. He is not to blame for what happened. He was involved in subsequent training programs (from 1994 to 1997). I think he is better informed about these programs than is Steve Robinson (who had no part in them).

It is too bad that Steve misinterpreted Jaime's comments. After all, if the collectors trained under the Netsman Project were well trained, it is because of Steve Robinson's efforts and the IMA Net-training team supplied to Haribon.

Peter Rubec

 

[clarionreef]

Good morning all,
Thanks Mike but I understand the reluctance OF GOOD PEOPLE to believe there is no santa claus.
Amid the razamatazz and the feel good euphoria surrounding newly minted environmental people, its hard for them to believe that the good guys are not always so good.
The aid for Africa movement organized by Bob Geldorf saw stealing and embezzling on such a scale as to make Bob look like a buffoon. Of course he was not wrong for trying to help. He was wrong in giving the food to the Mengistu dictatorship of Ethiopia and allowing it to feed the soldiers and their homelands and not the starving Eritreans. Hey, he was a humanitarian not a politician. How could he know how things were really done in wartime Ethiopia?
And so the West, with its share of well meaning people, often fall prey to the conduits of aid in the country of need. The conduits represent the all important "infrastructure" insisted on by the original funders . This infrastructure is automatically assumed to be staffed by well meaning people of passion and caring. To suggest that they would use the issues to strengthen their own positions would be...would be...accurate in so many cases. My plea to Haribon was that thru success in the field, we could generate more and more interest, support and fuding AFTER we accomplish our objectives of training 2.500 cyanide fisherman. First prove it, then get strong as a result of it.
They would have none of that. Cash is cash and the $150,000. disappeared to little acclaim...and so did I. as I could not be a party to the scam.
NETTING which every non commercial person has for years dismissed lightly and flippantly is exactly what the divers need most, especially if the training is to be half assed and incompetent. The divers need the material to work with.
The 1/6 inch and 1/4 inch clear mesh "ordinary net" as the Filipinos call it is a part of the gear as is the barrier net and, in a few areas only, the "push net". The lack of ordinary net material has seen a substitute of the push net in areas where it was inappropriate and worthless. As the barrier net alone was left to collect all the fish...which is impossible...failure, doubt and backsliding set in. The repeated pig headedness on inexperience of program directors, managers and city people have constantly and erroneously assumed that since this net collecting thing is so hard, we must ask for more money to force it thru. That had the effect of alienating the buyers and dealers and to tell you the truth...even w/ more money, if you're collecting the wrong way, its always going to be difficult.
So a history of failure, false conclusions and off track thinking leads us to this day.
And those of us who just want to buy all netcaught fish still can't do it! Can you see now why some people get upset? Can you begin to imagine what 10 years of doing business w/out all the advantages enjoyed by all the other dealers is like? Do you begin to comprehend the costs and sacrifices of not selling out on this thing? The unfair trade advantages could be grounds for lawsuit except for the fact that the issue has been in the care of well meaning environmentalists for so many years and they claim to be successful. Successful as they ask for still more money to spend on the problem.
Maybe its not a malevolent and corrupt desire to sabatoge real reform...maybe its just incompetence added to last years incompetence. Maybe when one group steals another programs, they steal the errors as well w/out knowing it. Nearly a dozen groups have run net training programs now for 15 years and we still can't get netcaught clown triggerfish! Where can you fail so often and so predictably and not lose your job?
More and more I can see that if training is not run like a business and pegged to productivity, its not going to be done right. If its not run by commercial collectors it will be run with standards so low that a new conception of netcaught will take hold... Hard to do, expensive, complicated, unachieveable and clearly another million or so is needed to keep on with the illusion and pretense of training and industry reform.
If allowed to solve the problem, solve it we will. Its largely in the hands of assorted figures meeting in Manila this week and thruout the month. MASNA, AMDA, CORL and MAC can reset and work together if they choose and care enough to unite in a common cause.
Steve Robinson
AMDA PRES

 

[mkirda]

I find Steve's attack on Jaime to be in poor taste.

Peter, Jaime and Steve,

I have to say just one thing: This sort of on-line bickering does not help support the cause. All it does is turn off potential allies- the very hobbyists you want to target for support.

Somehow, you need to get beyond this and work together. Pointing fingers and blaming others will only serve to hurt the cause.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[clarionreef]

Mike,
You're right, but there was no attack on Jaime
Just when I think we're beginning to communicate and get somewhere, something derails it. Peter, have some decaf. I am interested in Jaimes thoughts now that so much previously undisclosed material is finally getting out.
We trained so many so early and so fast, we were intent on reaching 2,500 by the end of the project. We ran out of my netting. [ Haribon refused to allow more. ]Being way ahead of schedule speaks to the effectiveness of ther initial trainings and underscores how much could've really been accomplished if allowed to continue.
But alas, it was not to be. ..and if we cannot correct the mistakes of the past, are we not doomed to repeat them?
Or should we just keep those mistakes hidden? Just a question.
Sincerely, Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Steve,


Many of the hobbyists represented by MASNA are interested in helping out. I've dropped you an email.


-Lee Morey
MASNA BOD, Membership and P.R.