Indonesia Situation

[oddomatic]

My question is who will do it even if you could? Cost money and in some these smaller countries it could be band the next day like what happened in Fiji and Indonesia. getting to be too much risk.
Same with fish. Most economic place to do it is near the ocean in warmer climates. In the USA land is to expensive near the ocean.

If Tonga ever gets their act together it would be a fantastic source of mariculture pieces...

 

[JaimeAdams]

Thanks for the updates

 

[oddomatic]

If they can't collect it and can't ship it then building a facility is irrelevant. Hard corals are considered endangered animals and require CITES permits and local permits to collect and transport.

I'm in the process of going to another Island and starting a farm there, with the full support of the government-that is the real key to long term success. I did it 12 years ago in the Solomon Islands, 8 years ago in French Polynesia, and over the last couple years in Indonesia, all eventually failed due to unstable or uncooperative governments. Will have to see how this new adventure plays out. It takes commitment, time, and money, for sure doesn't just happen on its own and keeping it going is the real challenge.

What about Tonga?

 

[PacificEastAquaculture]

What about Tonga?

No one is doing any large scale culture work there at the present time.

 

[oddomatic]

No one is doing any large scale culture work there at the present time.

Seems like a fantastic opportunity...

 

[oddomatic]

No one is doing any large scale culture work there at the present time.

Personally, I can’t understand why either. The only issue I can see is the shipping difficulties. But, given the recent additional pressure on Australia, Tonga’s close proximity to Australia (shipping wouldn’t vary much from what Australia already deals with) and the Tonga government standing behind mariculture, why hasn’t Tonga been more of an area of interest as of late?

 

[oddomatic]

@PacificEastAquaculture I noticed you never mentioned what Island you are setting up the new farm at. I suspect there may be a reason for that, but if you can tell us, I’d be very interested to know. Is it Tonga?

 

[PacificEastAquaculture]

@PacificEastAquaculture I noticed you never mentioned what Island you are setting up the new farm at. I suspect there may be a reason for that, but if you can tell us, I’d be very interested to know. Is it Tonga?

All in due time my friend.

 

[Lowell Lemon]

@PacificEastAquaculture
Did you ever run into a collector by the name of Steve Robinson? He had a collection station in Sea of Cortez at one time. Also worked to prevent the collection of fish in the Philippines using Cyanide back in the 1980's. Specialized in Clarion Angels for quite sometime.

 

[VR28man]

If they can't collect it and can't ship it then building a facility is irrelevant. Hard corals are considered endangered animals and require CITES permits and local permits to collect and transport.

I'm in the process of going to another Island and starting a farm there, with the full support of the government-that is the real key to long term success. I did it 12 years ago in the Solomon Islands, 8 years ago in French Polynesia, and over the last couple years in Indonesia, all eventually failed due to unstable or uncooperative governments. Will have to see how this new adventure plays out. It takes commitment, time, and money, for sure doesn't just happen on its own and keeping it going is the real challenge.

This is a very good thing to hear.

Too bad about CITES and Guam. One would think that, if you could run a mariculture business in Fiji or somewhere like that, Guam or even American Samoa would be great places for a US company to set up a mariculture business in. ;Meh

 

[VR28man]

@PacificEastAquaculture I noticed you never mentioned what Island you are setting up the new farm at. I suspect there may be a reason for that, but if you can tell us, I’d be very interested to know. Is it Tonga?

I’m curious too.

However, I am aware that there are loads of reasonable businesses reasons to not mention it, until it’s up and running. And as much fun as it would be to run a guessing and betting pool , it would not be appropriate.

 

[oddomatic]

I’m curious too.

However, I am aware that there are loads of reasonable businesses reasons to not mention it, until it’s up and running. And as much fun as it would be to run a guessing and betting pool , it would not be appropriate.

I wasn’t really expecting to get an answer.

 

[BradB]

I still don't understand this endangered status. Most Acropora species are listed as vulnerable on the IUC, but there does not seem to be much backing that up. Not only are they plentiful in the wild, but they grow fast and taking frags and aquaculturing doesn't have any negative effects on wild populations.

 

[oddomatic]

I still don't understand this endangered status. Most Acropora species are listed as vulnerable on the IUC, but there does not seem to be much backing that up. Not only are they plentiful in the wild, but they grow fast and taking frags and aquaculturing doesn't have any negative effects on wild populations.

According to NOAA... Mostly Bull****.

https://www.nps.gov/viis/learn/nature/upload/T-Ecorals_fact_sheet.pdf

 

[VR28man]

Mostly agreed with @oddomatic . While I'm not aware of any of the species on the NPS PDF he linked to being common or heavily used in the ornamental reef tank industry, the criteria are very arbitrary. Julian Sprung gave a presentation about this several MACNAs ago* (my further babbling on it is in this post):



To bring it back to the topic at hand, regulations like this is what a big coral seller like @PacificEastAquaculture has to deal with. I'm fine with not taking truly endangered species, but the sometimes unscienftific arbitrariness of the classification (as I understand it: according to US law/administrative procedures: basically there has to be a lot of damage to its habitat in the US. The fact that it's very well aquacultured, and abundant elsewhere, does not seem to matter), the ease of which it's challenged by activists, the fact that we're a niche hobby, and the rate that some people will deny it makes my head spin.

Several years ago, as I understand it US FWS funded a study to see if giant clams should be banned for trade in the US -from any source, for any reason - prompted by an activist campaign. But it obviously didn't go through.

 

[shred5]

Mostly agreed with @oddomatic . While I'm not aware of any of the species on the NPS PDF he linked to being common or heavily used in the ornamental reef tank industry, the criteria are very arbitrary. Julian Sprung gave a presentation about this several MACNAs ago* (my further babbling on it is in this post):



To bring it back to the topic at hand, regulations like this is what a big coral seller like @PacificEastAquaculture has to deal with. I'm fine with not taking truly endangered species, but the sometimes unscienftific arbitrariness of the classification (as I understand it: according to US law/administrative procedures: basically there has to be a lot of damage to its habitat in the US. The fact that it's very well aquacultured, and abundant elsewhere, does not seem to matter), the ease of which it's challenged by activists, the fact that we're a niche hobby, and the rate that some people will deny it makes my head spin.

Several years ago, as I understand it US FWS funded a study to see if giant clams should be banned for trade in the US -from any source, for any reason - prompted by an activist campaign. But it obviously didn't go through.

I have not watched that video but that talk I believe was in a response to a proposal that would have pretty much made all SPS illegal to own or propagate. There was going to be a exception in it for a permit for coral already owned on the list. Only problem would be you could not propagate them, trade or sell even with a permit. You only were allowed to keep the coral on the list you previously owned.

By putting these key corals on the list it effectively would have banned all SPS sales because we can't tell the difference between most sps. Who would risk selling one because if you didn't know which it was you would be a criminal. Also who would determine which ones were being imported so none would be. I think some Euphyllia were on that list too.

I was reading another thread on this and it is weird how oblivious people are to this stuff. One law slips through and the hobby could be gone or massively crippled.

It used to be on NOAA website but everything about this proposal is gone since it is several years old.

 

[shred5]

Personally, I can’t understand why either. The only issue I can see is the shipping difficulties. But, given the recent additional pressure on Australia, Tonga’s close proximity to Australia (shipping wouldn’t vary much from what Australia already deals with) and the Tonga government standing behind mariculture, why hasn’t Tonga been more of an area of interest as of late?

Not sure they could go through Australia. Isn't it Illegal to bring any coral into the country from outside the country. They do not want something being introduced that does not belong.

I know they would only be passing through but I wonder how that would work..

 

[PacificEastAquaculture]

Still no word on when or if exports will be happening again.

As mentioned earlier, the conference was held in Bali and the Jakarta Post has an article about the activities: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/...n-every-little-bold-action-counts-jokowi.html

I haven't heard whether corals, cultured or otherwise, were discussed, but by what I see in the article it seems that the general tone does not sound promising for coral exports.

I have gotten several reports of supposed coral smuggling into the US. It seems some accusations have been made that corals are being smuggled in with live fish shipments. I have no firsthand knowledge of such activities, but it seems some in Indonesia are seeing Facebook and other posts by some vendors touting Indonesian corals for sale and that these posts lead them to either believe or confirm their suspicions that smuggling is occurring. This may be a total overreaction to these posts or it could really be happening. It shows the fragile state of disposition of some exporters since they have had no income for more than 7 months. I have been inundated with inquiries from exporters begging me to take fish shipments just so they can have some income. Unfortunately for them I recently decided to stock only tank-raised fish since the quality of wild caught fish has declined so much in recent years due to cyanide collection, rampant diseases, and poor handling, IMO.

If in fact coral smuggling is occurring it would be extremely foolish for those involved since huge fines and federal prison time would await them and surely such practices if found out would permanently end any possibility of reopening exports.

Rumors abound that Australia is considering restrictions or ending coral exports since the closure of Fiji and Indonesia has put such a huge demand on Aussie corals. I have no confirmation whether such rumors are at all true, but the rumor mill keeps churning them out.

Propagation of corals at our facility keeps going strong, although IME the general reefkeeping hobbyist is still mostly unaware of the circumstances surrounding the actual origin and acquisition of the corals they seek for their aquariums. There's a huge number, the vast majority, of marine aquarium hobbyists that never come on these forums or attend any swaps or conferences and are unaware of this issue. We, and I'm sure many, LFS owners encounter such hobbyists every day. I engage in conversation with them about this issue and many folks that come into our shop are completely oblivious.

 

[cmcoker]

Heard on the radio that 20 Indonesian officials leaving a conference were on the flight out of Jakarta that crashed into the sea. Have you heard any on this?

 

[DSC reef]

Heard on the radio that 20 Indonesian officials leaving a conference were on the flight out of Jakarta that crashed into the sea. Have you heard any on this?

That's crazy. I heard on the news that a new Boeing crashed