ctenophore March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 The Mar/Apr 2014 issue. Did anyone else read it yet? I'd love to hear your comments and discuss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smallreef March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 im assuming everyone has a subscription, but anyone know anywhere that sells current copies locally? my bookstore at potomac mills stopped carrying it, guess i was the only one buying it,lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore March 7, 2014 Author Share March 7, 2014 It really is worth a subscription. The articles on gyre flow patterns this month are also very enlightening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 The Mar/Apr 2014 issue. Did anyone else read it yet? I'd love to hear your comments and discuss. I've got the issue and saw that Ret had something in it, but have not yet read it. I'll have to do so now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 Synopsis of what this article is about? I'm curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToddR March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 im assuming everyone has a subscription, but anyone know anywhere that sells current copies locally? my bookstore at potomac mills stopped carrying it, guess i was the only one buying it,lol Books-a-Million carries it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 Also available as an online subscription. I have the online one where you can read the PDF. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 Also available as an online subscription. I have the online one where you can read the PDF. is it wrong for me to ask you to share it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 So the article is about how the marine aquarium industry can be a powerful, possibly even the most powerful, advocate for protecting reefs and reef fish from destructive fishing practice. It talks about how a lot of the buyin has to happen in the communities that live next to the reef and depend on it for export trade, but also for food. Seems like the food thing would bag way more fish than the export trade... I'd like to see that happen. It's similar to what has taken a few years with coffee in a way. Now there are a ton of reputable importers and roasters engaging in what they call "direct trade" purchasing of coffee which, in some cases, pays two orders of magnitude more than standard C market coffee. It's way above "fair trade" which simply sets a minimum price and says nothing about quality. Are there any importers of fish that have a transparent chain of custody like the coffee folks do? Like, for instance, a group of snorklers in Fiji that commit to certain practices and are paid a higher price because of that committment, then fish brought in from that group with their initial environment described in detail so that the aquarist can do a good job of taking care of them. Here's an example from the coffee world, for instance, of what that might look like: http://counterculturecoffee.com/store/coffee/decaf-valle-del-santuario Are customers willing to pay a higher price for fish that are demonstrably better sourced? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanM March 7, 2014 Share March 7, 2014 is it wrong for me to ask you to share it? I'd be willing to send it to your email, but it's one of those things where they show you the pdf in the browser and let you turn pages and you click to download a few pages but it just spins and spins and never actually "prepares" the pages for download... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dread240 March 8, 2014 Share March 8, 2014 (edited) There's one company already doing this kind of. I wanna say it's quality marine, they ship their fish with a QR code sticker, and you can scan the QR code and it tells you all about the collection details and who collected it edit: had to go searching http://www.qualitymarine.com/News/Company-News/Breaking-News--Quality-Marine-QR-Code-Tags-%2812/17/11%29 Edited March 8, 2014 by dread240 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howaboutme March 8, 2014 Share March 8, 2014 Thanks to Alan for the PDF. I'm not totally getting the point of the article to be honest. I'm not sure doing things like tagging and making sure certain techniques are followed means sustainability of the reefs. The advocates for protecting reefs and reef fish are basically saying don't harvest wild livestock. Some of the points made are good but the fact is, the livestock is still being wild-caught. Just being devils advocate here...obviously, being in this hobby, I don't mind purchasing wild harvested livestock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctenophore March 8, 2014 Author Share March 8, 2014 The point is that responsible collectors can have a net positive effect on the reefs where they live. The impact of the collection is insignificant compared to the protection that villages will bestow upon their reefs due to economic incentives. If they can make a comfortable living catching what amounts to a few very valuable minnows, then they won't allow much higher impact commercial fishing, much less loggers or miners to come in and destroy their resources. I think the term was "artisianal fishing" or similar. Highly targeted, minimal impact take of high value animals. It's up to hobbyists to create the demand for higher quality, sustainably collected fish & coral. QM is on the right track with their tags, but combine that with collection traceability like what PNG EcoAquariums had (has?) and I think hobbyists will really see the value in sustainable collection and start to look past price a little bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Origami March 8, 2014 Share March 8, 2014 Found it. Read it. This is pretty much exactly what Ret talked about when he came to see us a little while back. I'm glad to see that he's still beating the drum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ret_Talbot March 9, 2014 Share March 9, 2014 Hey, Guys. Thanks for the discussion regarding my article in the current issue of CORAL Magazine. For those of you who have not seen it in the print magazine, there is an earlier online version that is pretty similar. You can find that here. While the topic is indeed in my wheelhouse and something I have been discussing based on my reporting for several years, the point of this article is to highlight the fact that this is now being reported in peer-reviewed scientific literature. That's relatively new and quite exciting for sustainably-minded aquarists to consider. Now the caveat: For those who didn't read the piece, I state clearly in the article that the benefits of marine aquarium fisheries to ecosystems as discussed in the scientifc paper are dependednt upon comprehensive trade reform. Having said that, the paper does add to a growing body of peer-reviewed scientific literature laying out a clear path forward toward a truly sustainable and robust aquarium trade. Hope you guys are well! Best, Ret Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YHSublime March 9, 2014 Share March 9, 2014 I love it when WAMAS generates enough talk about some one the appear! Welcome to the forum, I'll have to read your article! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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