[Coral-List] Selling coral is legal in the US

Wed Sep 8 11:05:04 EDT 2004

The trick is finding out where the coral originated.  I have seen Pacific corals for sale here in the Florida Keys that are labeled coming from Indonesia (which legally exports coral skeletons) but were wrapped in Manila Times newspapers (Philippines prohibits such exports).  Until black markets are stopped or corals tagged at collection sites, illegal trade will prevail...

*******************************************************************
Dr. Alina M. Szmant
Coral Reef Research Group
UNCW-Center for Marine Science 
Presently in Field:  371 Bahia Dr, Key Largo FL 33037
Tel & Fax:  (305)453-4792
Cell:  (910)200-3913
email:  szmanta at uncw.edu
Web Page:  http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
******************************************************************

________________________________

From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov on behalf of Mark Eakin
Sent: Tue 9/7/2004 11:37 AM
To: John McManus
Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Selling coral is legal in the US

The Lacey Act is still in place and bans the import of wildlife and
products that were taken illegally in their country of origin.

Cheers,
Mark

On Sep 6, 2004, at 8:11 PM, John McManus wrote:

> I recall from the early 80's that the "Black Bass" Act (Lacey Act
> maybe?) prohibited the import of natural products from a country that
> bans their export. I was asked to provide information on the coral
> trade
> (a draft of an ICLARM Newsletter article) to be was used in the
> congressional discussions at the time. This act was supposedly used to
> restrict coral imports from the Philippines and elsewhere.
>
> Does anyone know the status of this act? Has it been superceded?
>
> Cheers!
>
>   John
>
> _________________________________________________________
>
> John W. McManus, PhD
> Professor, Marine Biology and Fisheries
> Director, National Center for Caribbean Coral Reef Research (NCORE)
> Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (RSMAS) University
> of Miami
> 4600 Rickenbacker Causeway Miami, Florida 33149.
> jmcmanus at rsmas.miami.edu Tel. (305) 361-4814 Fax (305) 361-4910
> www.ncoremiami.org
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Szmant,
> Alina
> Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 8:26 AM
> To: Douglas Fenner; coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: RE: [Coral-List] Selling coral is legal in the US
>
> Hi Doug and everyone:
>
> Thank you for the very thorough summary of coral trade regulations.  I
> have a 'funny' P.S. to this story:  We are doing a research project to
> track the dispersal of eggs/larvae after a mass spawn event, and
> working
> with physical oceanographers, will be releasing 100's of kg of small
> plastic beads that are fluorescent or magnetic.  The company in England
> that has made and shipped the beads to us listed them in the commercial
> invoice as "artificial coral eggs".  The first batch made it through
> customs OK, but the second one that arrived several days later was
> flagged by the customs official who will not relase them until the are
> inspected  by the Fish and Wildlife people to certify that we are not
> violating CITES laws.    I guess that agent has forgotten the
> definition
> of "artifical"!
>
> Alina Szmant,
> [hopefully dodging H. Frances so that we can dump out beads in the
> ocean]
>
> *******************************************************************
> Dr. Alina M. Szmant
> Coral Reef Research Group
> UNCW-Center for Marine Science
> Presently in Field:  371 Bahia Dr, Key Largo FL 33037
> Tel & Fax:  (305)453-4792
> Cell:  (910)200-3913
> email:  szmanta at uncw.edu
> Web Page:  http://people.uncw.edu/szmanta
> ******************************************************************
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov on behalf of Douglas
> Fenner
> Sent: Wed 9/1/2004 6:52 AM
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: [Coral-List] Selling coral is legal in the US
>
>
>
> Mike,
>     The polyps that open and close are probably in the soft coral
> group,
> the Xeniids.  Importing live coral is not only legal, but it is big
> business.  You must have a CITIES permit to export or import coral,
> alive or dead.  CITIES' purpose is to stop the international trade in
> endangered species, and control the trade in threatened species.
> Endangered
> species like Pandas cannot be traded internationally, nor can their
> parts.
> Only about 5 species of the roughly 790 species of reef coral in the
> world are documented to be endangered or even threatened, and none of
> those 5 are traded to my knowledge.  But coral reefs are threatened. 
> So
> all corals are on a second CITIES list that can be traded but you must
> have a permit.  It is hard to tell corals apart, so all corals are on
> the list, even though they aren't endangered or threatened or have
> anything to do with coral reefs (it includes over 600 species of deep
> water solitary corals).  It's a
> bit like saying tropical rain forests are endangered, and wood of
> different trees is hard to tell apart, so we will make it so anyone
> must
> have a CITIES permit to carry wood between any two countires.  That
> includes anything from a tiny piece of wood in your pocket to a giant
> ship full of wood from a cold area that is not tropical forest.  And
> the
> big companies have plenty of money to hire specialists to get the
> permits, or possibly even grease palms if necessary (in the case of
> lumber, they can jail or deport anyone who dares to question illegal
> logging in some countries, buy off officials, etc).  But you as a
> scientist may have no money and no idea who controls the permits in a
> developing country.  I am trying to get a permit to move one small
> coral
> from a country where the responsable officials won't even do me the
> courtesy of replying to my letters and e-mails.  Indonesia is the
> largest exporter of corals at this time, but about a dozen countries do
> it (the Philippines used to be the largest exporter, but has banned all
> export for any reason whatsoever, including scientific).  Aquarists
> like
> corals with fleshy polyps, and Indonesia exports significant numbers,
> including 10's of thousands of pieces of a couple of quite rare
> species.  The exporting country must certify under CITES rules that the
> export does not endanger the species, yet Indonesia has very little
> data
> on whether the trade endangers these two rare species.  To find out
> would cost a fair amount of money, and money is scarce in the
> governments of developing countries (though perhaps not for a few
> wealthy individuals in the country). The USA is by far the largest
> importer of coral, and the trade is clearly driven by demand.  The
> trade
> in live corals for aquaria has been growing rapidly for some time, but
> the trade in coral skeletons is relatively steady (but not
> insignificant).  Although the European Union has banned the import of
> several fleshy corals, the US has not.  Collecting coral or selling
> locally collected coral is certainly illegal in Hawaii and I believe in
> Florida as well, but selling imported coral is perfectly legal,
> provided
> there is a CITIES permit.  I would think that local law enforcement
> officials would put checking for CITIES permits very low on their list
> of priorities, if they know about it at all.  US Customs and US Fish
> and
> Wildlife take it quite seriously, as do Australian and European customs
> and probably others.
>
>     For more information see:
>
> Corals in international trade.  US National Marine Fisheries Service
> Office of Protected Resources.
> www.nmfs.noaa.gov/prot_res/PR/tradeincorals.html
>
> Wabnitz C, Taylor M, Green E, Razak T  (2003)  From ocean to aquarium:
> the global trade in marine ornamental species.  64 pp.  www.unep-
> wcmc.org/resources/publications/WCMC_Aquarium.pdf
>
> Bruckner AW  (2002a)  Trends in international trade in stony corals: a
> synopsis of CITES data.  In Bruckner AW (ed.), Proceedings of the
> International Workshop on the trade in stony corals: development of
> sustainable management guidelines.  NOAA Technical Memorandum
> NMFS-OPR-23, Silver Spring, MD, 56-57
>
> Bruckner AW  (2002b)  Surveys of coral collection sites in the
> Spermonde
> Archipelago, South Sulawesi.  In Bruckner AW (ed.), Proceedings of the
> International Workshop on the trade in stony corals: development of
> sustainable management guidelines.  NOAA Technical Memorandum
> NMFS-OPR-23, Silver Spring, MD, 117-135
>
> Raymakers C  (2001)  Review of trade in live corals from Indonesia.
> Brussels, TRAFFIC Europe.  18 pp
>
> Lilley G  (2000)  Review of trade in live corals from Indonesia.
> Traffic Europe.  32 pp
>
> Green EP, Hendry H  (1999)  Is CITES an effective tool for monitoring
> trade in corals? Coral Reefs 18:403-407
>
> Green E, Shirley F  (1999)  The global trade in coral.  WCMC
> Biodiversity Series No. 9. World Conservation Press, Cambridge.  70 pp
>
> Fenner D  (2001)  Mass bleaching threatens two corals with extinction.
> Reef Encounter 29:9-10
>
>
>     -Douglas Fenner, American Samoa
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