Ban hits Fiji locals hardest

[120reefkeeper]

http://fijisun.com.fj/2018/01/03/over-60-workers-laid-off-from-coral-company/

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

There is some serious hardball politics being played there right now.

 

[Brew12]

http://fijisun.com.fj/2018/01/03/over-60-workers-laid-off-from-coral-company/

Hopefully they can get this worked out.

 

[120reefkeeper]

There is some serious hardball politics being played there right now.

I agree maybe a little on both sides. I know if it was my company I’d have to let people go too. How do you keep people employed when your business takes a hit like that??

 

[S-t-r-e-t-c-h]

I guess i had just assumed there was some exception for mariculture in the law. That seems a serious oversight in the legislation...

 

[120reefkeeper]

Hopefully they can get this worked out.

I hope so but appears to be pretty cut and dry to me. I don’t believe anything was lost in translation. A ban is a ban.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yea, gov started it again for some strange reason. (IMO usually money)
If you get the Chance , read up on Walt and Debbie’s story. They’ve been dealing with this for a long long time.

 

[120reefkeeper]

I guess i had just assumed there was some exception for mariculture in the law. That seems a serious oversight in the legislation...

I think everyone had assumed this also, but that’s not what the mandate says. It’s interesting for sure.

 

[Brew12]

I hope so but appears to be pretty cut and dry to me. I don’t believe anything was lost in translation. A ban is a ban.

This is politics, and all politics is local. Even the best intended laws tend to get revised when the people who vote are impacted negatively enough.

The fastest way to get a law changed is to upset voters you need for re-election.

 

[120reefkeeper]

Yea, gov started it again for some strange reason. (IMO usually money)
If you get the Chance , read up on Walt and Debbie’s story. They’ve been dealing with this for a long long time.

Oh I have and this is not the first rodeo. The exception being that this seems different to me , especially after the entire Hawaii thing. The possibility of this sticking just seems to be greater.

 

[120reefkeeper]

This is politics, and all politics is local. Even the best intended laws tend to get revised when the people who vote are impacted negatively enough.

The fastest way to get a law changed is to upset voters you need for re-election.

Not that I’m saying that politics isn’t involved but this has world wide repercussions. I tend to believe in my own opinion that there has been a movement over the last several years towards more sustainability. With all of the talk about global warming, coral losses, fish depletion. These things have a tendency to have more bite now then they had even a few short years ago.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

To me, it's just curious that the response to reef health concerns is "ban coral and marine ornamental fish collection." I don't have any data to support this, but I believe that food fishing harms the reef much more than the aquarium trade. Even cyanide fishing, as terrible as it is, doesn't destroy the reef structure. It only poisons fish in a small area. The most sustainable net fishing surgically removes only select animals from the reef, literally leaving the rest of the reef untouched. Blast fishing for food fish is still unfortunately common on reefs: this not only destroys corals and the reef structure, but it kills all fish with no specificity whatsoever. Worse, drag nets used for food fish destroy the reef bottom and corals, and they also result in indiscriminate by-catch.

I'm all for sustainable collection. If a study is performed and finds that a certain fishery in an area is not healthy and cannot sustain collection, fine. Let's suspend that specific fishery for that specific area. Let's not put a blanket ban on all collection from an entire region of the world. At the same time, restrict the dangerous and destructive food fishing practices which invariably do at least the same amount of damage (if not, more) than marine ornamental collection.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

I'm not surprised. I think we will see similar bans in other areas of the coral triangle in the future. Compared to tourist $, this hobby is a drop in the bucket for the local economy. If the local tourist industry says "this is hurting our business" or if they want to be seen as pro-environment it's an easy call for them to make.

 

[Zagreus]

It's all politics. They did the exact same thing to Fiji water. This will play out with more money being paid to government and bribes to the officials and then the ban will suddenly be lifted.

 

[andrewkw]

I'm not surprised. I think we will see similar bans in other areas of the coral triangle in the future. Compared to tourist $, this hobby is a drop in the bucket for the local economy. If the local tourist industry says "this is hurting our business" or if they want to be seen as pro-environment it's an easy call for them to make.

Is this really true?

While I don't know much about Fiji other than the corals and fish that come from there I would think they would make far more money selling corals then tourism. After all there are millions of reefers in the world. According to a quick google search in 2015 692,630 people visited Fiji.

 

[120reefkeeper]

Is this really true?

While I don't know much about Fiji other than the corals and fish that come from there I would think they would make far more money selling corals then tourism. After all there are millions of reefers in the world. According to a quick google search in 2015 692,630 people visited Fiji.

It is true. If you look up Fiji gdp per composition.

Services make up 71%. Industry makes up about 18%

https://www.indexmundi.com/fiji/gdp_composition_by_sector.html

 

[Mark Gray]

This is going to be very hard on the people of Fiji. There is a huge amount of unemployment there and not allot of work options. I spent some time thereI believe it is political, the locals at one time had harvested all the giant clams for food They did not ban harvesting them but ask the people to stop eating them. not sure if they ask them with a jail sentence though. I did not scuba dive there I didn't have time to shop for a dived shop and the one i went to was very expensive, but I did snorkel just off the beach and from what I saw things looked pretty good

 

[120reefkeeper]

It's all politics. They did the exact same thing to Fiji water. This will play out with more money being paid to government and bribes to the officials and then the ban will suddenly be lifted.

I really try not to look at it from that standpoint.... all politics aside this effects everything. The environment, the local employment, the employers, the government of Fiji.... and on and on down the line. Not a very smart political move if it is one.

I try to view it at face value. This post definitely is not about the possible political repercussions, it’s about real people, real lives and real environmental concerns. Walt and deb are great people and have done tremendous things for the locals, the hobby and the environment. I don’t really see them laying off people as a political move although some might construe it as one. As a business owner you have decisions to make and that’s based on available work.

 

[Mark Gray]

I wonder if it's a way to disrupt Walt Smith has? I don't know much about his practices but what I've read recently and sounds like he does a lot to restore the reef and collect/grow responsibly but it sounds like every local has to sell through him. I could definitely be wrong, just going off of what I've recently read

It very likely might be, could be someone wants his land or something but their operation has help Fiji immensely I really fell bad for the people, I was there working and I know many locals not around Walt Smiths place on the other side of the Island. I really hope they can work it out

 

[Zagreus]

I really try not to look at it from that standpoint.... all politics aside this effects everything. The environment, the local employment, the employers, the government of Fiji.... and on and on down the line. Not a very smart political move if it is one.

I try to view it at face value. This post definitely is not about the possible political repercussions, it’s about real people, real lives and real environmental concerns. Walt and deb are great people and have done tremendous things for the locals, the hobby and the environment. I don’t really see them laying off people as a political move although some might construe it as one. As a business owner you have decisions to make and that’s based on available work.

I appreciate everything you're saying and don't argue with any of it. I'm only saying on a macro level as someone who's somewhat familiar with how the Fijian government operates and what they did to Fiji Water and the Resnicks who basically took an unused resource to employ an enormous amount of the country and pay enormous amounts of revenue back into the country, went through the same exact issue. Some government agency just shut them down overnight regardless of the economic impact downstream. It worked out in the end after the government and officials were paid off. It was purely a low class political move.