[Coral-List] Impact of listing 66 Species on Coral research

[Jon Skrapits]

Jennifer:

Than you VERY much. This is quite helpful.

As Samuel Clemens said, I believe, "No good deed shall go unpunished" - so
I'll ask another question if I may. Regarding moving Acropora from
"threatened" to "endangered", I assume this is because it has been
perceived that it has gotten closer to extinction. What might the potential
down-sides be with respect to our ability to try to understand the
habitat-level issues that are in play. As I mentioned earlier, there are
places where Acropora appears to not know it's supposed to be rare. This
may be an academic issue because they are outside the US, but are there
scenarios in which we might look back at a successful decision to "upgrade"
Acropora and say, "damned, if I'd only known that I wouldn't have worked so
hard to make it happen". I ask this because I teach a course titled "Coral
Reefs: Biology, Geology & Policy" and these are the kinds of questions my
students ask.

Thanks,

Dennis


This was the point I was trying to make when I suggested that promoting
aquaculture and working with the industry was the way to save the reefs.
Banning importing will just allow the gov. to pick who gets to have
licenses and permits. We can't afford the costs of that.