Helping ornamental fish collectors' families in Sri Lanka and Indo.

[anemone5]

Hi ,

I am not new in the hobby. I have been a marine aquarium hobbyist for more than 16 years, and was involved in some projects related to the cyanide use in the Philippines.

I do not know if this is the place for this message but I have to try.

I have a question for the readers. What we can do as stakeholders of the marine aquarium industry to help the families of hundreds of marine fish collectors who have disappeared in Sri Lanka and Indonesia?

I know that many of us have contributed to at least one of the many organizations collecting funds to help. I also understand that first thing is first, water, sanitation and recovery of bodies are priorities. However, I think that the marine aquarium industry should get organize with a project tending to collect funds to help directly the families/communities where hundreds of ornamental fish collectors have disappeared.

Ornamental fish collectors in developing countries have been neglected for decades.

Your input is important.

Best regards

Jaime Baquero

[beerguy]

[welcome]

[beerguy]

[moved]

[anemone5]

Hi all,

Following an e-mail I got from Svein Fossa, President of OFI (Ornamental Fish Int.) as an update of the situation.

Regards

Jaime baquero


"It is clear that the effects in Sri Lanka have been disastrous, not for the industry as a whole, but primarily for the poor collectors living on the coast line. Many have lost everything they own, also boats, diving equipment and collection gear, in addition to the lives of family members and friends. The infrastructure, roads, schools, etc are also severely damaged, and it is likely that it still will take weeks before we have a full overview of the situation.

In India it is also bad, but apparently somewhat less critical for the aquarium industry in general. That may be because the marine side is proportionally much less important in India that in sri Lanka, and we are constantly seeking information from our members and others in the area to stay updated on the situation there.

In Indonesia we know even less, unfortunately. The major industry operators in Jakarta have so far reported that they see no problems for the industry. I fear that there could be reasons to fear that there actually are collector community's in Sumatra that could have been affected. On the other hand, the worst hit are, the Aceh province in the north. It has been literally at a state of war with the central government for many years, with large difficulties in travelling or transporting goods to and from Jakarta and the area. Therefore, it is somewhat unlike that there has been much collecting for the aquarium trade in Aceh, at least.

We are still seeking information from Indonesia.

Thailand does, as you probably know, not have any legal marine aquarium export, and the Malaysian trade reports to have been unaffected.

As for the Maldives, we don't have any information yet.

OFI's opinion is that there indeed are many people in the marine aquarium industry that desperately will need help, on short AND long term. Therefore we launched our OFI-Tsunami-Help-Fund three days ago. We expect that it will be mainly OFI members who will contribute to that, but everyone (also in the USA) is of course welcome with donations. Actually, OFI also has quite a few US based members.

I hope this helps somewhat. You are welcome to come back to me if you should need more information""

Regards

Svein

[anemone5]

Hi all,

It is not easy to get the marine aquarium industry behind efforts such as this "helping fish collectors". As reference point we have the cyanide problem in the Philippines and Indonesia.

To this point, what is necessary is to get someone or a group of people with connections to get the message out. Two good options I see are MAC and MASNA to start with.

I agree with Peter Rubec's statement about the fact that concerned NGOs and industry groups should meet and develop a common strategy. To plan and develop that strategy is going to take time. The sooner the better.

Please see:

www.lireef.org/tsunami_fund.html
http://homepage.mac.com/demark/tusnami/9.html

[anemone5]

In the city of Ottawa, where I live, kids have organized a campaign called "Spare Change 4 Kids", they are spread across the city in the major malls collecting funds to help kids in the disaster area.

Personally, I think that marine aquarium hobbyist and the industry in general could do something like that or much better.

Stores could have jars to collect funds "Helping Fish Collectors", by the end of the month each store writes down a cheque for the total collected and send it to MASNA. Later MASNA writes down a cheque to the red cross/MASNA helping fish collectors account.

It is just a matter of commitment and willingness. What do you think?