The majority of wholesalers trading live reef fish for marine aquariums claim to support responsible collection practices and often exhibit pseudo-certification stating that no specimens collected using cyanide fishing are traded by their companies 8. Nonetheless, these regulations are still poorly enforced by exporting and importing countries 7, with this destructive fishing practice continuing to be employed to supply an undetermined number of live reef fish to importing markets. Cyanide fishing has been officially banned several years ago in most Indo-Pacific countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines 5. For a detailed description of this fishing technique please see Rubec et al. Cyanide fishing, one of the most destructive fishing techniques employed in Indo-Pacific coral reefs to collect live fish, is commonly, but not exclusively, employed to supply the marine aquarium trade, with its use in Indonesia and the Philippines being well documented 5.
These two countries are known to be among the main suppliers of live reef organisms entering the marine aquarium trade, a multi-million dollars industry acting at a global scale and having the USA and the EU as their main importing markets 3, 4. Among the threats impacting coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific region, destructive fishing practices alone are considered to be the ones most severely affecting countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines 2. Coral reefs worldwide are endangered due to an unprecedented level of direct and indirect anthropogenic threats that may push these ecosystems beyond a point of no return 1.
0 kommentar(er)
