Fiji, Destroyed

[Henry22]

I'm not sure I should have posted this here or in the lounge but The woman at my lfs which is just a fish store has been in the buisness for thirty yrs and the store is owned by a marine biologist. When i was asking about what types of live rock they had she said the only fiji they have left is from what people who dismantled their tanks had brought/sold back to the store. She said the reason for this was that fijis corals have been destroyed and their is nothing left except bad baserock so they dont get any more "new" fiji rock. I believe her and can see that being true and was wondering if anyone has heard anything about the state of fijis coral and have any thoughts about this?
Thanks for any comments and replies

 

[KahluaZzZ]

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/marine/news/news.cfm?uNewsID=10626

 

[Henry22]

Pretty sad

 

[kool_sk8a]

wow, i didnt know that. We dont seem to be having a shortage here in the UK. Maybe its because the demand for liverock is lower here.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

altough i don't think there isn't anymore, i was looking for some more in a trusted LFS. They said they were supposed to have fiji coming, but a month later they still don't have some. They have Vanuatu and Tonga left, but the guy doesn't seems to be able to get real fiji .

 

[Henry22]

yeah, my trusted lfs carries base, fiji(whats left over) and marshall island for 3,8,15
kinda expensive for the marshall island

 

[Avalon]

I was just kind of wondering, since I'm not a SW guy (yet), what SW aquarists actually do to help preserve natural resources?

Take for example the FW aquatic plant hobby. We trade clippings. While the original plants are harvested from the wild, we don't exactly have a billion dollar business going on that destroys the natural inhabitat.

So, what do SW people do to help promote original habitats in the hobby, say Fiji LR? Do you guys trade LR? Just wondering...this is not a "cheap shot," but a valid question. I ask cause if you can trade stuff like LR, that would be really cool! My LFS has expensive crap rock and I would not want to get LR from them.

 

[Mushroomman]

Well I know people who frag corals and sell them to people they do and dont know, thats one big way to help the reef out.

 

[Henry22]

Well I know people who frag corals and sell them to people they do and dont know, thats one big way to help the reef out.

What do you mean by frag coral, sry I'm a SW noob.

 

[Mushroomman]

Oh no problem. Im no expert myself, but Im working on it . Fragmenting is when you take a coral and cut off a bud, branch, or part of it to get a whole new coral.

 

[OCCFan023]

when you cut a part of a coral off and then the part that has been cut off forms a new coral (i believe)

 

[DustinKeating]

Aquaculturing things like live rock and corals, and tank raised fish are starting to become a big priority for a lot of people. Understandably so, until recently i didn't think it was even really possible to damage an entire reef so quickly.

 

[seastaar88]

well just think of how fast our rainforests are disappearing due to lumber harvesting.

 

[Fish Friend]

almost everything good about thios planet is dissapearing !!! all these rare marine fish..corals etc, soon there will be nothing left !!

 

[wayne]

If you think the amount of live rock people remove from the reef is damaging it, you are very misguided. The volumes are trivial compared to that destroyed by dynamite fishing for food fish, and for construction work for enhancing tourism. The saltwater hobby could, and should, and does enhance the reefs value by giving a commercial value that is more managable as it is higher value per ton by a factor of some 1000's. It's not utopian, but it's the truth. People don't preserve things that have no value if they have to get food on the table.
FWIW the commercial export of wildcaught fish from S America is a carefully monitored trade supported and policed by, for example, the Brazilian governmetn for exactly the same reasons. If you can't get cash that way , you have to go dynamite fishing, logging and so on.

 

[wayne]

Which is pretty much what that wwf document linked says if you read it.

But anyway the biggest threats to coral reefs are bad agricultural practices leading to more surface runoff of soil and nutrients, causing water quality problems for fringing reefs, and cgobal warming and excess CO2 in the atmosphere causing waterproblems for corals, so if you want to make a difference start moaning at your government to do something pronto

 

[1979camaro]

unfortunately the people in power in our government do not believe that global climate change is a real phenomenon......just some sort of scientifimagic hocemus pocemus created by scientists to upset the religious right and the oil companies...

 

[Henry22]

i Dont believe in global warming. A scientist/researcher at the University Of Virginia has found out that their isnt global warming and taht the holes in the ozone are filling theirselves back in. But whatever, its just my opinion and i dont know much

 

[dbacksrat]

regardless of what we all believe in this planet is SOL unless we have a worldwide effort to clean up....I don't mean to point any fingers but countries like china and mexico have massive amounts of pollution and waste with little regulation of its disposal

 

[Henry22]

True. India is pretty horrible to and I was watching RealTV on spike tv and I saw a video of English ships dumping radioactive waste in international waters, Green peace had a field day,haha