[Coral-List] Impact of listing 66 coral species on coral research

Matt Nolan mpnolan at lbl.gov
Thu Dec 13 16:52:43 EST 2012


>From the statement below one can also infer its going to stop many emerging
energy solutions that potentially can lower the quantity of CO2 produced.
Ugh, that seems so counter to the bigger picture lower CO2 production needs
to happen oft discussed.


It all boils down to how many people can you convince to care.

If something is implemented that turns out to be a "wrong" solution,
if you keep growing the group of people who care you are more likely
to get additional chance to make another change.


Would you like to shrink (or kill off) the aquarium/coral industry?
Something needs to be taxed.  Things with a heavy tax tend to have
have traditionally have decreased appeal to humans.  More an emotional
response
than peoples ability to pay is involved.


If someone asks you a straightforward yes/no question,

and you give the only conceivable possible answer :

"It depends"

then you are a true scientist.




On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 6:23 AM, mtupper <mtupper at coastal-resources.org>wrote:

> Gene Shinn wrote:
>
> "Listing all those species (why no list all corals??) is going to retard
>  research needed to learn more about coal reefs.  Ask anyone who has ever
> worked
> on a listed species of any kind."
>
> I completely disagree with this statement. Admittedly, I work with listed
> reef
> fish species rather than corals, but one thing I know for sure is that it
> is
> EASIER to fund a research program on listed rather than unlisted species.
> For
> example, I have been quite successful getting funding to study large
> groupers
> and humphead wrasse. Do you think I would have had the same success if I
> had
> sought funding to study blue chromis or beaugregories? Of course not.
> Listing a
> species makes it a target for research and conservation funding dollars.
> Yes,
> there are permits that represent extra hoops to jump through, but as
> Jennifer
> Moore has already told us, NOAA will support research activities that aid
> the
> conservation of listed corals (just as they do for listed reef fish).
>
> On another note, several listers have doubted that listing a species does
> anything to help it survive. Again I disagree. In addition to research, I
> also
> work for an environmental consulting company, mainly doing environmental
> impact
> assessments of proposed development projects such as oil and gas
> exploration,
> LNG terminals, ports and coastal mines. The presence of listed species at a
> proposed development site is often a deal-breaker. For instance, the
> presence of
> coastal tailed frogs recently halted plans to develop a hydropower project
> on
> the BC coast.. Many developments that could have serious negative
> consequences
> for coral reefs through pollution, sedimenation, coral removal, etc.,
> could be
> thwarted by listing coral species.
>
> And for those that were complaining about the cost of upgrading sewage
> systems
> and other infrastructure to avoid killing listed corals, WAKE UP! Isn't
> that
> exactly what we need to be doing to halt the rapid decline of coral reefs?
> I
> would hope that most people on this list would prefer to pay a few extra
> dollars
> in municipal taxes to support infrastructure improvements, rather than see
> their
> local reefs disappear.
>
> Cheers,
> Mark
>
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