Christian Science Monitor Magazine on Aquaria & Cyanide

[mkirda]

All the coral cuttings are coming from the wild reef itself. The mother colonies are growing out on the reef. Therefor the farmers react when someone tramples their farm land. [ie harm to the reef] Even the racks that the coral farmers set in the sand lagoons help the reefs. These coral tables act like mini artificial reefs. Attracting many of the same marine life as the wild reefs, only in areas that cant naturally support coral structure growth.
Its a win win situation!

I wouldn't be so sure of that. The largest current producer isn't farming in lagoons- it is in the open-water. And let's not kid ourselves here- This is a Westerner who has set up shop in Bali to mariculture corals for a living. It is his business, not some way to provide the Balinese villagers with a way to make a living or to provide funding for ecological management.

Once a fragment comes from the reef and survives, further vegetative propagation is easily ensured. No more need to go back to the reef for more, other than for different species or color morphs.

I'm not denigrating the guy- I've got a couple of his corals in my tank at home and they are something to behold. He's got some beautiful stuff. But knowing how the business is situated (off-shore/bouy-based), it isn't going to provide incentive to villagers to protect their near-shore reefs. And looking at this from a purely conservation viewpoint, he is not doing squat to protect the reefs. The only benefit the locals get will be jobs working for him (decent benefit) and an alternative place to go fishing (near his bouys).

For me, it isn't WIN-WIN, but WIN-(Ok, we got a little, but not a lot.)
Good, yes, and I applaud him for it. On the reef conservation standpoint, it could be better.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

 

[clarionreef]

Wayne,
I retouched the last post.
Now its more professional and with less frustration showing thru.

Mike,
I think that Kalk is largely correct when he points out the obvious sea-change in the trade towards reefs, corals, zoos and such.
Scan the hundreds of sites and see if a single poster wants to know why his bicolor angel had a little red mark on the stomach and died 3 days later....even though it was pretty fat. Where are there hobbyists wanting to know why bulletproof predators like clown triggers often starve...
Where are the endless questions on the smallest of nuances in fish keeping as there are in reefs?
I think the huge shift to reefs has diverted attention away from the cyanide trade and made people lose interest in protecting-fish habitats and far more motivated to learning about captive reefs, corals etc.
It used to be that someone first kept freshwater, then salt and advanced towards reefs.
Now beginners start with reefs!
I think that the trade has lost interest in the real coral reefs that produce fish and has become enamoured and insulated w/ the rising reef industry; a trade as different from fishkeeping as freshwater.
Reefkeeping is a third industry and most reefies would not want a bicolor angel or a chaetodon in their tanks !
'Ever watch a reefies get angry and animated when a little pigmy angel goes after their new acro? He says #&%*$# :evil: and then &%*$# :x a lot.
"Thats it.!" He says...,.."No more fish, except a sandsifter and something benign to feed the sandbed!"

As far as basic fish collecting and village fisherman go....that seems to be a trade that counts PETCO as its biggest supporter now! They want and buy the basic S.E. Asian variety of fish more then anyone... What a drift and disturbing trend.

As far as Mikes point that it minimizes the fisherman and offers most of them nothing. Thats true. The new foreigner inspired aquaculture trend uses far fewer fisherman then Gods own wild culture of fishes.
Wild fishes help fisherman. ..aquaculture works pretty much to avoid them.
The rub is...the fisherman will not just go away. They will impact the reef negatively if not involved in something more positive.

 

[Kalkbreath]

One GUY? There are twelve aquaculture farms in Bali alone , not to mention one in Vanuatu, one two in Tonga,one in Solomon's and Fiji. It is estimated that there are two million corals growing out in farms throughout the pacific as I type .
The farms are scattered through out the region. Names like Surabaya, Java Dinar, Dateline, There are almost as many plug types as there are farms....... Coral grown on Flat disks , !/2 round pugs ,grown on five types of bottle caps , square disk , Aqua rock and they all are separate programs.
Not one of them that I know resorts to F-2 as a brood stock. Sure there might be a few realy special morphs that cant be found on the wild reefs in great numbers. But For the most part there are so many adult colonies to farm still out on the reef, that were a long way from having to resort to F-2 mariculture. See there has never been a shortage of huge mother colonies , its finding the tiny four or five inch colonies thats been the needle in a hay stak. Ever seen a photo of the great barrier reef? How many tiny trade size acro colonies do you remember seeing? Thousands apon thousands of three foot minster heads are the dominant size in places like Tonga , Vanuatu and such ....... Now with Mariculture , these large corals are valued by the natives.....thus protected.
Its a great new face for the reef hobby ......and Im one of the first to sport it......How do I look? :wink:

 

[Mike King]

Interesting thread,

It's good to know that some here actually understand what Community Based Management is about.

Community members along with CORL-AS have actually started taking the next step, creating the first Community Resource Center (CRC) where the community will actually receive the majority of the returns (at the supply-export end) from the mariculture products produced. Things are coming together quite well and community involvement is growing more every week.

Soon a true eco-beneficial mariculture program will be up and running
supplying corals, giant clams, snails and in a few years fish reared from post Planktonic captured larva. All this while creating village jobs, restoring coastal habitats, and creating the needed funding to run the CRC.

The Communities here are working on the coral farms, and nursery areas, and even more important they are once more taking action to protect their coral reefs and coastal habitats!! Every weekend more and more high school and college students (along with older community members) are showing up to conduct underwater clean ups on the reefs within the villages CORL is working with. ( BTW I need more mask, snorkels, and fins if anyone has some old ones laying around).

CORL is also helping several villages to track down the sources of excessive nutrients entering their coastal areas in an attempt to improve water quality. We have also started working on aquaculture and aquaponics projects within the villages to reduce the demands placed upon the villages coastal resources.

Community based resource management !!!!!!!

It’s one big tool to use to help save the coral reefs and other endangered habitats.

Mike King
Director of CORL
Acting Director of CORL-AS
www.corl.org

 

[Kalkbreath]

..aquaculture works pretty much to avoid them.
The rub is...the fisherman will not just go away. They will impact the reef negatively if not involved in something more positive.

Lets assume the reef hobby will grow ten fold in the next ten years. Mariculture is a very labor intense activity. It takes a lot of hands in motion to stick a few million coral plugs....If demand increases as I think it will .......There will soon come a day when the total value of farmed coral exceeds that of the MO fish industry. Take the current rate for cultivated acros......10 to $20 FOB. Thats equivalent to up to forty PI fish. One box of ultra acros sells for 250 buck island money..........Thats four to ten fish boxes. If the MO fish market is still about four million fish per year and half those fish sell for fifty cents ...... then it only takes about 100,000 farmed sps coral to equal the crop value of fish from the same region. ..................There is already ten to twenty million dollars worth of coral growing right now. 8)

 

[clarionreef]

Kalk,
I get the point but the coral farming biz may become a victim of its own success. We are still on the upswing of this thing.
If that many acros and SPS's hit the market will not the value decline as the volume makes the product...commonplace? The same calculus works w/ oil and gold...why not with a monocrop of millions of SPS's?
Sure, a 'shake-out' will decrease some volume but anything that can get on a farming track...may ruin the very product value assumptions upon which the R&D money is based!
These farmed acros and such may become devalued like the yellow tang of Hawaii and suffer perpetual price wars. Something will give.
The gold rush may end as soon as the Live rock one did and all the dis-placed fisherman will still need work.
Now if LPS's could be farmed with anywhere near the same efficiency....then the variety and market charm could continue longer.
Steve
Futhermore... hobbyists that like moving things in their tank may never shift to reef tanks.

 

[clarionreef]

And Kudus to Mike King;
for the example of how to do it right in American Samoa!
Now, if his work could be expanded on to the critical flash points ie. the Philippines...then the fisherman could be offered new work in many places.
However....to this day, the Philippines only allows you to bomb and poison coral...not farm it for export.
Steve
PS. Farm it you may...but only for 'non-commercial purposes'....ie. just for the eco-grant/funding industry. They call it "restoration" and its primarily for 'research' and for show.
Stopping the development of coral and clams for the ornamental trade
in the Philippines is an interesting story. [ but for another thread]

 

[mkirda]

One GUY?

Read my post again, Kalk. I'm talking about the current largest exporter of farmed corals. Pay attention. I was quite specific and did not refer to any of the other farms in Bali...

.How do I look? :wink:

The egg on your face is so classic Kalk.

 

[Kalkbreath]

You made it seem like the only real player was a self contained one man band ........of coral glue and hand snips.

The largest farming op by far is CV Dinar .
Agung is very Balinese.......his manager Ken may act like he owns the place but so do most Danes

But your right ........the other three major coral growers are a French, an Italian and a Danish owner. The owners still hire islanders to chop and prop.......so they are employing the masses .
The island Governments get their cut of the farmed coral proceeds as well through the weekly CITES bribes .
The French tend to not play well with others whether it be Oil for food or CITES permits so not to many farmed polyps coming from out of the Blue as of late.
Personally , I like to think of the islands of Vanuatu , Fiji , Tonga and the Solomons as the real new face of the hobby ...........Athough most of them are western owned as well .................... But did you really expect the actual natives to up start coral farms on their own? :wink: