[Coral-List] economic valuation and market based cunservation

Rudy Bonn rudy_bonn at yahoo.com
Mon Aug 15 19:36:49 EDT 2011


heres a good example to ponder at midnight weak and weary--every lobster mini season that is held every summer during the last Wednesday Thursday during July brings 20 to 25 thousand people to the keys to outsmart and eventually catch a few tasty flortda lob sters  6/person/day is the bag limit and many citations were written for exceeding the bag limit, having undersized lobster and many others.  I have witnessed divers upturning coral heads to get to the lobsters. I have witnessed blue star certified dive operators coming into physical contact with the corals which is breaking sanctuary regulations-- especially a blue star certified operator who receives that cert through NOAA  I was very disappointed to see that,  is not  a blue star given for showing environmental awareness and concern for these fragile ecosystems?   Someone needs better training!  Tourism is good dont get me wrong but at what costs can natural systems afford to pay?
  dgradation, extirpation, perhaps extinction?  These folks come down here with little or no experience, buy a net and a tickler without the knowledge to properly use one and end up killing corals.  Tragedy of the Commons look faintly familiar?
I think, we should hold training classes prior to the issuance of a lobster stamp,  theres some revenue and theres some awareness to be sold.  Why not, we have to attack threats to coral reefs one by one until we see victory in a large healthy elkhorn colonies and staghorn colonies repopulating the reef tract and it can only be done through proper education and training  if we want our reefsa to survive for future generations who have the right to see them by the way. then we need to develop better stategies== as long as coral reefs keep dying-- the more urgent our tasks become    
 
Rudy S Bonn
Director of Marine Projects
Reef Relief
631 Greene Street
Key West, FL 33040
305-294-3100


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