Trying to start a Red Sea coral farming/conservation program...

[BecomesOcean]

This is brief cos internet cafes are expensive.....

Word. My name's Josh and I'm a Peace Corps Volunteer in Jordan, just finished on year and have my second year of service left to go. I live about an hour from Aqaba, Jordan's only city on the Red Sea. (Quick tourism plug, come dive here. The acros here are maddeningly blue....) I'm an English teacher in the public schools but before I leave I'd really like to get some sort of conservation/coral farming program. The saltwater aquarium trade is nonexistent here and so far I've not found anything that resembles what I'd like to do. I'm trying to get contacts here of course, but it doesn't hurt to throw the following questions out to the invisible thousands of this site......

1. Anyone have any experience setting up or working with coral farming of conservation programs? From scratch or from something established?

2. Anyone have any suggestions or contacts for such a project?

3. Anyone got any leads for the legal side of this? (ie. preservation laws....this one's for all you coral lawyers out there.)

4. Anyone ever visited Jordan? (I'm just curious on this one.)

This project is partly cos I live on a desert mountan and darn it all but how I miss my ten gallon, partly cos this could be a great opportunity for helping out our ailing reefs.....

Rock on. My email is joshwalsh@comcast.net if you'd prefer sending replies there. Thanks in advance for at least reading this.

[GreshamH]

The question you should be asking is:

Can coral from Jordan enter the US or EU?

(the two largest consumers of the worlds MO)

I'd sugggest starting with CITES on the coral exportation issue first, prior to any more work on this project, unless your farming to restore the Jordanian reefs.

[BecomesOcean]

Thanks for the advice.

Yes, the main intent farming to ensure that the reefs don't see any further degredation, and maybe even see some improvement. We don't have much coastline here, less than 30km I think, so the bit I have seen is fairly representative of the situation in general. Not that I've seen what the baseline looked like, but I estimate that our reefs are at about 70% of what they should be. Pretty good from some of the gloom and doom reports I hear from other places.

Beyond that, I'd love to see if the project could create some jobs and some income by having a commercial side to it as well. I know I'm prolly gonna get tangled in lots of tape and nonsense, but it'll be fun trying I guess.

I see that you're an importer.... while I'm still in the embryonic stages of this thing, are there any long term things that are good to address at the inception of a project? Specifically, I mean what things are there you like about the people that you import from and work with? If this is looking too far forward, no matter, just trying to glean as many suggestions as possible.

[mkirda]

Originally posted by BecomesOcean
I see that you're an importer.... while I'm still in the embryonic stages of this thing, are there any long term things that are good to address at the inception of a project? Specifically, I mean what things are there you like about the people that you import from and work with? If this is looking too far forward, no matter, just trying to glean as many suggestions as possible.

That would be really simple. That the product is accurately represented, that it is available, that it is properly packed and properly shipped. All for the lowest possible price.

Right, Gresh?

Seriously though, places like Bali are doing aquaculture for the trade.
The first thing that would need to happen is to see if there is ANY export of marine ornamentals going on first. If not, you are going to have a long road ahead of you navigating the Jordanian government to get permits for everything (I would imagine.)
It could be as simple as making concrete plugs and tying on some coral frags and selling them to an exporter after enough growth. And it could be so difficult as to not be worthwhile.

Regards.
Mike Kirda

[angelsil]

4. Yes, I've been to Jordan a few times. I've also dived the Red Sea extensively from Eilat to Sharm. How lucky to be in Jordan for 2 years. The *nicest* people.

Good Luck with your project. It's commendable!

[GreshamH]

Mike's right (as always ).

My biggest concern for your project is, there is no MO industry in Jordan and I believe they're not CITES, so you couldn't ship to 98% of the industry as it stands now (no EU or US shipment in other words).

I've seen similiar programs started where they didn't do this crucial resaerch first. They tried to solicate funds from the generel public to start a coral farm (buy a carribean island) co-op. Problem is/was, no one addressed the fact it's illigal to ship those corals to the US. When I questioned them on this, they never replied. Hmmm, strange. *cough*frauds*cough*

[BecomesOcean]

angel - Yes. Impossibly nice. I had to turn down a lunch invitations every day practically.....

Gresham - What's MO and CITES? Thanks for the info, as always.

[Steven Pro]

MO stands for marine ornamental, which is simply the trade in saltwater animals for aquariums.

CITES is the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, http://www.cites.org/