House Bill 4928
On September 19th, 2005 I was given the
opportunity after being elected MASNA’S new Industry Representative to attend a
meeting with representatives of Congressman Ed Case’s Office on Capital Hill
along with Reef Protection International’s Drew Weiner. We did spend some talking on the aforementioned bill as part of
the meeting. Since I was pretty well uninformed of this bill given my recent
election, I thought it would be a good idea to take the time to read and acquaint myself with the bill.
Being a pretty
conservation minded individual myself I did enjoy reading this bill. The
aim of the bill is to promote more responsible use of coral reef resources,
conserve coral reef biodiversity and protect coral reefs from destructive
fishing and collection practices. Both U.S. and international coral reefs
would benefit greatly from the proposed measures.
The proposed bill advances several significant, new management
approaches in an effort to relieve coral reefs from the unsustainable collection
of coral and reef fish, as well as
destructive fishing practices that harm the habitat.
New management approaches advocated in the bill include:
- shifting the burden of proof onto commercial users of resources,
- requiring demonstration of sustainable management and use,
- requiring an ecosystem-based approach to management, and
- requiring that no destructive fishing practices were used in the
collection of the animals.
Key provisions of the proposed bill are that for wild coral and ornamental fish
are as follows. Before coral and ornamental fish can be collected and
either imported or exported out of the United States a plan must be
pre-approved that demonstrates that
the collection is sustainable and does not harm the species in the ecosystem. This approach significantly
shifts the burden of proof to the commercial users of the reef resources. For
maricultured coral and fish the facility must be
pre-qualified. The facility has to demonstrate it is operating in an proper manner and that is not detrimental to the
species in the wild and does not harm existing ecosystems, such as by introducing
non-indigenous species into the facilities territorial area.
I will caution everyone while this is a bold initiative, this
bill does not have much chance of passing in its' current format. I would
like to invite everyone to read this bill and formulate their own opinion. The
bill can be viewed here.
http://www.masna.org/iloc/Case coral bill.pdf
Recently in Hawaii
they locked down 40%
of their territorial waters to commercial fishing in an effort to combat the
damage done by extensive over collecting. An example cited by a friend of mine
whom dives in Hawaii
involves the Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens). He has lived in Hawaii for many years and the population of
these very popular fish has dwindled in the past years. SurgeonFish are well known for their rasping nature
of consuming algae on the reef. Without these fish our world's
reefs would be naturally overrun by algal growth. The Yellow Tang is the second
most sold fish in the United
States. However given the above scenario it
is not sustainable to keep collecting this fish and we as hobbyists have to
make a stance to stop this type of destruction. Thankfully in the areas they
have restricted collection the population of Zebrasoma flavescens are increasing.
If
this bill is to have a chance of passing it will most likely need to be
rewritten to extensively list all restricted species among other regulation
practices.
I
invited everyone to send their opinions for consideration so that I may work
with the legislation to help protect our greatest natural resource so that our children
and grandchildren are able to enjoy the beauty of this awesome wonder that we
are allowed to be part of and bring into our homes. We must act responsibly and
we must act now. Please send all comments to industry@masna.org
Thank
You,
Chuck
Scannell
MASNA
Industry Representative
