To what extend do you think activists go to prove their point?

[Dearth]

Bit of a rant then my answer which is tied into my rant

I have serious issues with those aligned with so called environmental groups, green groups and activist groups the vast majority of these groups go to the extreme to prove their points yet will rarely if ever show the other side of the issue and they have boatloads of people joining their causes without being properly informed and will often end up with egg on their faces once the reality of the situation comes out.

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Now that being said my answer is that we as aquarists do have an impact on populations of fish and coral and rare species that much is true however in many areas where such things are collected are now somewhat to heavily regulated by those nations where these are collected. What is more damaging though are the locals, tourism and commercial trade those 3 alone do more damage than the aquarium trade. Just because the locals live there doesn't mean they are friendly to the environment and they can be quite destructive especially in the Asian countries where polluting is commonplace and laws are tough to enforce. Tourists love the colour and beauty of the ocean but few actually have an understanding of the fragility of a coral reef or how easily some species of fish get stressed out and will by ignorance or carelessness damage huge areas of coral communities. Commercial trade this is the extension of industrial needs into the ocean, building new resorts to fuel tourism, homes and of course fishing. All 3 of those are way more damaging than collecting for the home or commercial aquarists.

[Misses.ReefWars]

we do the same amount of damage as being reefers, as how the entire population pollute the oceans, i think in time, we will be the only ones whom conserve and breed these fish and invertebrates, corals and other ocean life forms, we will be saviors of dying breeds but who really knows, I think activist should concentrate on more important political and environmental issues so that the BIG picture is no dying oceans or reefers lol

[mrhasan]

Great insights And apparently, I can't disagree with any of the points

Yes, being in a hobby which is directly connected to the nature, it is our own responsibility to be vigilant about what we do and what we don't do in this hobby; not for the sake of activists but for the sake of nature.

It is just sad to see activists putting everything seem like an easy solution but simply "banning" it. I wonder how many solutions came from such groups rather than scientific findings. They always seem to pick up some broken pieces and connect the dots between those pieces according to what they want to highlight. Alongside, our side also has flaws like being tempted to buy fishes which only the most careful hobbyist can keep and lack of knowledge (yes! that's a big issue. I can confidently say that there's very few "new" hobbyist who would come over here in the first place to ask questions about what's right and what's wrong instead of going to a big box store and asking for everything that's needed to keep that nice cleaner wrasse).

In the end, what I think is the solution to sustainability is proper knowledge and being responsible hobbyist. Banning is not and never will the solution, there's always black markets for such occasions.

[mrhasan]

Here's an interesting video I found about fiji's coral recovery. The video shows how bad the coral bleaching and dying occurred during the beginning 2000s but recovered within a decade. I guess snorkel bob has outdated data

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHcsg3dnass#t=321

How can our hobby even put a dent into such resilient colonies of animals that have been inhibiting the earth for more than 400 million years!