I like Midnight Banggai... I will have to TM that one. Or Banggai Boots. I will also have to come up with some proprietary fake long spine urchins for the broods. Ones that look real but don't eat your coraline or send you to urgent care.
In the USA we have a Representative Republic, not a democracy.
No I thought we'd take a page out of your book and threaten them with a ban if they don't clean up their act. Give them an ultimatum that if they don't clean up their act in 5 years time the NOAA will institute the import ban. In that 5 years investments can be made in expanding captive breeding efforts domestically and abroad to signal how serious we are about it. If they fail to make sufficient progress at least then we will have expanded our captive breeding efforts to the point to where we could more easily do without Indonesian wild imports.
Unfortunately, most undereducated and impoverished humans do not act like that. They will look at that, as we have four years and eleven months to continue their current actions and then the last month they will do the minimum to get an extension. "because they are making changes "
There is a possibility they will try to do that which is why the ultimatum has to be unyielding so they don't procrastinate. As things stand currently if the ban went into effect tomorrow the whole industry would erupt into chaos and the price for Banggai cardinal fish would quadruple as domestic aquaculture simply isn't currently able to keep up with the demand. Whether Indonesia makes changes or not the 5 years would give us time to increase captive breeding capabilities so that if it comes down to it we aren't struggling to meet demand.
You should also ask for a source of the OP's comment, "Domestic production is very difficult, and is space and labor intensive, and will therefore likely never grow cost effective to meet the demand here in the U.S."
Is it to hard for you to ask yourself? Or you don't really want to know because it won't change your opinion, I am guessing. Just trying to poke at me for not questioning what you think I should. I'm more curious about the claims that everything is already captive bred anyways so who cares. I have asked multiple times in this thread what those stats are, both for captive breeding here in the US and importation statistics (wild-caught, captive bred, aquaculture) and no one seems to know, but are still supporting a ban despite not knowing actual statistics. Everywhere I search people interchange captive bred with aquaculture and it doesn't look like NOAA differentiates either. If you are going to ban something shouldn't you know the granular statistics of what you are banning? Seems like Step 1 to me, which is why I question claims of percentages.
Hope has nothing to do with it. If Indonesia changes their ways, great. If they don't, at least we will have had to time to properly prepare alternatives. Perhaps Indonesia hasn't put as much effort in because we haven't given them any reason to seriously believe we would cut them off. Actions speak louder than words. If they see that we are proactively building up captive breeding capabilities ahead of the deadline they are more likely to take the threat seriously.So we are hoping? Hope is not a strategy or course of action. You are expecting a country that has not done anything yet with this species or others is all of a sudden going to care. Again, how do you make the thread so unyielding that they listen? How? NOAA listed this fish as endangered in 2016 - are you sure that the threats have not happened already to no avail?
Seriously, do you not feel that this approach is not naive and foolish? Are you willing to risk the rest of the hobby on Indo's response to this? If after five years nothing has changed and the wild populations are in even worse shape, what do you say then to the folks who want to ban everything else for wild collection? Our hobby and industry certianly will have lost their voices on the topic. You willing to hitch all of our trailers to this turd of a trailer? I DO NOT want you to hitch all of our trailers onto this turd.
I don't mean to get all preachy or anything, but do you have teenagers or young adults in your home? Have you ever led a team of workers who suck? You would NEVER put your livelihood on the line with this same approach to a career or young people who depend on you to make them functional.
Hope is not the mother of invention, necessity is. Nothing will changed until somebody makes them.
Maybe if we send them this?
Why would anyone build up capacity for CB Cardinals without the ban?
Simple, the NOAA tells ORA and all the other aquaculture operations that in 5 years time a ban on wild imports will be instituted, unless Indonesia can show "exceptional" progress with preserving the species wild populations.
Both of our approaches involve some amount of hope. You hope that the ban will prevent the aquarium hobbyists from losing face and will help the species recover. I hope that by giving our aquaculture operations time to properly prepare they can supply demand while at the same time hoping that Indonesia will see the work being done to move away from wild harvesting and will act to increase their own aquaculture operations as well increase their protections of wild populations. But regardless of our hope, both our plans involve some kind of call to action. If the NOAA moves forward as if a ban will take place (unless by some strange miracle the wild populations magically rebound wink-wink ) but is willing to give time for domestic aquaculture operations to properly prepare, the Indonesian government is more likely to take that seriously. And even if they don't, we will be more prepared for a ban and the economic fallout will be less severe than if they went and passed a ban the very next year. Like stocking up on supplies before the long winter. Switching to all captive bred Banggai cardinal fish isn't a change that can happen overnight. New facilities need to build, business models adjusted, methods perfected, and distribution meticulously planned. Sure wild caught might be cheaper in the short term, but like what see with the ocellarus clownfish when a saltwater fish is easy enough to breed captive production will eventually become more convenient and arguably cheaper than wild harvest.
