Data: Wrong; Sustainability: Don't care; Robert Wintner: Aquarium trade should stop!

[kien]

Originally Posted by IanWR

Wintner is saying that unlike fishing for food, fishing for aquaria is a luxury that is not needed. I think we could agree on the point that aquaria are luxuries, if not on the morality of luxury.

Indeed, I think we all understand and agree that our hobby is a luxury. Taking that notion a step further, I believe that mankind has based most of his existence on luxuries. If we roll the clock back a few hundred thousand years we will find our very first few luxury items, the controlled use of fire and primitive tools. There was a time when we existed without such things so in fact, they were not requirements for life. They simple made living easier and more luxurious.

From there we had opened Pandora's box and nearly everything in our history from that point can be attributed to luxurious living. The animals that we domesticated with the help of our tools. The paper that we invented to write on. The animals that we slaughtered for clothing and housing. The vast stretches of land we claimed to grow food or cotton for the clothes on our backs. The giant holes that we dig into the ground to harvest metals or dig up oil to fuel our cars, planes, boats or manufacture plastics and rubber for the shoes on our feet. The rivers that we dam up to power our cell phones and internets. These are all luxuries. Is riding your bike really "green" ? How did your bike come to be? Did it organically spring from the earth?

The luxury and impact of marine aquaria is just a drop of water in a tidal wave of human impact.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by kien

Indeed, I think we all understand and agree that our hobby is a luxury. Taking that notion a step further, I believe that mankind has based most of his existence on luxuries. If we roll the clock back a few hundred thousand years we will find our very first few luxury items, the controlled use of fire and primitive tools. There was a time when we existed without such things so in fact, they were not requirements for life. They simple made living easier and more luxurious.

From there we had opened Pandora's box and nearly everything in our history from that point can be attributed to luxurious living. The animals that we domesticated with the help of our tools. The paper that we invented to write on. The animals that we slaughtered for clothing and housing. The vast stretches of land we claimed to grow food or cotton for the clothes on our backs. The giant holes that we dig into the ground to harvest metals or dig up oil to fuel our cars, planes, boats or manufacture plastics and rubber for the shoes on our feet. The rivers that we dam up to power our cell phones and internets. These are all luxuries. Is riding your bike really "green" ? How did your bike come to be? Did it organically spring from the earth?

The luxury and impact of marine aquaria is just a drop of water in a tidal wave of human impact.

+1.... And this will just continue,... until the next asteroid hits... In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my reefing, flying, biking, hiking, etc, etc....

[BlueAbyss]

Didn't have time to post further this morning, was on my way to work.

I think that taking all of this into account is difficult for the average person. It's often extremely difficult, especially in our consumerist society, to see the impact that buying one product over another has on the world at large. I often feel that environmentalists fail to see the larger picture or that their scope is too narrow, insofar as saying "the ornamental aquatic industry is destroying our reefs". That's like saying cows are responsible for the hole in the ozone layer (anyone heard of the ozone layer lately?).

All species benefit from conservation, the average person should be able to see that. But wait, I'm speaking from my own point of view... a person living in a much poorer country may not see the world in the same light as I do. The guy trying to feed his family while leading a rather dangerous life on a shrimp trawler probably doesn't think about the barren wasteland he leaves behind. He thinks about his family, the dangers of his profession... and his paycheck. And I feel for him, whether I support him or not. That said, I'm careful about where my shrimp comes from and I don't eat shrimp often.

I'm also aware of the fact that everything has what I call an 'oil price'. In my case, everything has a much higher 'oil price' because I live fairly remote. I have yet to have livestock shipped in on a plane, but the time is coming... and I'm acutely aware of the price paid for the kerosene to run the jet engines. It's cheaper than driving to Saskatoon... but probably just as bad for the environment.

Environmentalists (and also groups like PTA that border on the absurd at some times) need a wider scope. The reefs are linked to the forest, the earth connects with the sky etc etc... and killing off the aquarium industry will NOT stop the destruction of the reefs and oceans.

End rant. Looks like something that should have been in the lounge

[Simons]

everyone has a part to play in responsible fish/reef keepers. We just need to make informed decisions based on the best available information at the time.

While I generally agree with most conservation efforts, I draw the line at 'bans' and poor science in the hopes of getting sound bites on the evening news.