[Coral-List] Aquaculture is the way

Jon Skrapits jon at treasurecoastcorals.com
Thu Dec 13 10:02:43 EST 2012


Scott,

"Local fisherfolk over harvesting for profit has been a big problem
all over the world for decades and its often worse when there is no
effective
government regulation and enforcement."

So why would you think gov. regulation would slow this? Are we stopping
drugs from entering the country? We can't even keep it out of our jails! I
suspect we would create a black market. Also, Darwin would have his way
with these people that didn't protect their resources through wise
harvesting practices and using their scarce resources efficiently. Sort of
how it will probably happen to us as we are over extending.

"Even if the US and Europe shut down imports of wild caught tropical fish-
the growing demand
from China, Russia, India and the rest of Asia is more than enough to seal
the
sad fate of biodiversity in the Coral Triangle."

Agreed. We can't stop the decline of coral in the ocean no matter what we
do. That was my original point. The aquarium industry is already getting
wise to this which is why I and many others aquaculture. I don't want the
corals to be depleted anymore than you do but we aren't stopping the rising
death toll. As you stated, regulation won't stop it either.So why shut down
importing. The reefs are dead in the water no matter what we do at this
point. Harvest em, grow em, and study them while we work on and research
how we can improve our methods of living to help reverse ocean
acidification and eutrophication. Education is the way to help people not
regulation.

In the time you have been living overseas the aquarium industry has changed
drastically. I am now able to grow 1000s of species of coral and re-havest
them with a mild carbon footprint. Others are working to captive breed
pelagic spawners as we speak. Benthics are childs play at this point. I am
able to see many of the effects of Salinity changes, pH changes,
eutrophication, and many other issues in a matter of hours. I also see
documentaries on tv and look at the landscape. It isn't pretty at all. I
see how the ecosystem is declining based on what I know would happen on my
farm. Once many of these corals are extinct, wouldn't it be a pleasant
thought to know that we have a few seeds in land based operations in
controlled enviornments? Is the government supposed to pick who is allowed
to keep these seeds or are we better off allowing free citizens to put
their twist on it with less of a tax burden on the public. This should be
the discussion since noone is deniying the fact that there needs to be
a change in our practices but why is it always run to dad(big gov) the
answer? We are able to exchange ideas here and as a businessman I want to
sustain this industry and derive profits from it through wise practices
while gov. will halt any progress of aquaculture through
taxation. Aquaculture would  produce better tax revenues since I and my
staff along with 10000s of others would still have jobs.


Cheers,

Jon Skrapits
Treasure Coast Corals, Inc.


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