CORL Alofau Project in American Samoa

[Mike R King]

Here's some info on one of the coral farming projects CORL is working on in American Samoa.

http://www.ctsa.org/upload/note/RN_1...1426379638.pdf

Fa'afetai Lava

Mike

[jordan2871]

Interesting stuff. Thanks!

[Anthozoan]

Hi Mike, sounds like what you've got going in American Samoa is pretty swell.

For each one sold, villagers will receive
$1.50, a solid profit for them given production costs of less than 10
cents. CORL will handle all marketing and shipping of corals.

I am curious as to how CORL differentiates itself from a for-profit venture if it acts as the seller and exporter of the aquacultured corals grown in AS. How does all that work out? If a non-profit group is providing corals into the market, should we expect that they will undercut the price of the for-profit offerings? There are a few larger exporters/importers here in Indo that do what sounds like a very similiar thing; providing the resources, materials, know-how, and broodstock to the farmers who then sell what they grow back to the business that 'nurtured' them.

Also, while the production costs may be only 10 cents per frag, I am aware that for a frag to reach marketable size a great deal of labor like building the tables, cleaning tables, scrubbing off algae, uprighting overturned pieces, etc. is very time consuming, and time must factor into the end cost. Here in Bali, farmers seem to ditch their aquaculturing efforts once the price per piece drops below $2 as evidenced by abandoned tables growing low-demand corals that have now become gorgeous squares of mature reef. Is there grant money that supplements the locals involved with the effort, or is all the work done simply on a volunteer basis? It would seem to me that the prospect to earn money from all the work would make it hard to divert only 20% of the product into the market. Once up and running, how many colonies are you going to be producing per month? What are the typical income sources for the locals that are volunteering, and how many hours a week does the average person put in?

What are the major hurdles and obstacles that you've encountered in the day to day, week to week, and long term of the coral growout project?

Anyway, I'm interested in hearing more about the project. The article was a bit scant on the specifics. It sounds like quite an idealistic program. If in fact it works well, I'm interested in knowing whether a similiar program could be implemented elsewhere.

Cheers,
Colin

[sharkdude]

Very cool Mike.

2007 budget pending, I may be in Pago for a week spring 2007 to audit the tuna canneries.

I may have some spare time to volunteer in exchange for a snorkel excursion of the farm.

chris.fanning@noaa.gov

[Mike R King]

Great Chris,

Will look forward to it, we might even be able to do some fishing with Sepp, we could shanghi Gordon too he hasn't been fishing in years!

Party at Malota! I'll break out the grill, toss on a wahoo and chill the beer!!

Mike

[GreshamH]

So when can we see these stateside Mike? We've been waiting


Hey Colin, I have a sneaking suspicion that after what MAC pulled on Mike, he'd probably not want to swap shop talk a MAC intern History my friend, history.

[cram]

Colin, in this context, I think not for profit means money made will be reinvested/donated back into the farmers/community rather than increasing capital or dividends for owners/directors etc. It doesn't mean that corals will be farmed and sold to "only break even" - they will still aim for making money and therefore selling corals at "market value".

I thought of a similar idea (coral/clam farming) when I visited my sister (she works for Ausaid) in Western Samoa recently.

[jake levi]

Hi Mike
very interesting program. I spent a couple weeks in AS in the early 80s, realy loved the place, I had to get on to the Philippines for a project else I'd have probably stayed forever. Or close.

Anyhow, when they are ready to sell let me know, post here and you can probably get orders for most all you'll have.

Along with your stony corals any softies being grown ? Seems like thats an easy niche to add. Probably easier to put together box lots for hobbyists with some.

[Mike R King]

Hi jake,

Place has changed a lot since the 80's reefs really took some hits in the 90's and coral recovery has been slow.

Yes the first corals we will be sending will be zooanthids and some soft corals, we are still working out the shiping for hard corals, we do have some nice blue tip A. formosa and some plain brown A. nobilis ready to send out, (we also have some lagoon table coral species started) but I want to make sure of flight connections and routes first.

Right now we are focusing on the lagoon corals as the lagoons are our main coral reef restoration projects ATM. In the next few months the Malota village coral farm will start up and we'll be working on reef crest and reef slope corals there. That will increase our hard coral species variety greatly. It's also a good location to working on spawning and growing out some local LPS species. Its about time I picked up where I left off with that work back in the late 1990's. We do at least have a sweet natural green torch coral here and several other LPS brain corals that I can work on.

One coral we have in abundance here is encrusting Montipora sp. there are some very nice colored ones, blues, bright orange and greens etc, is there any demand for them ? I found a bright orange with bright blue polyps just the other day


Mike

[Treeman]

Hi Mike!

Haven't talked to you in a while. I look forward to seeing some of the corals when they get to the states. I hope there is a way to get them direct into MIA. I have heard conflicting reports on this.

I think there is a good demand for encrusting montipora.

If you get down this way the club would love to here you speak again.

Matt

[jake levi]

Mike I think the encrusting montipora would sell well,

whynot see if you can come up with a 'sample box' of what is available and then offer them to get started, sps, zoos etc, your lagoon corals might be the hardiest ones to ship and keep in tanks.

then you'll be a lot better to guage the acceptance. Setting up the shipping connections might be the biggest problem . A couple of airlines to strictly stay away from. NWO being a major one.

I hate to think of what I saw degrading, but I know its reality, a little bay I used to snorkle in the Philippines at Samar is now destroyed by crappy fishing boats pollution. Beautiful little bay of about 200 acres, with sand bottom and coral outcrops is now a desert.

I dayhiked up a mountain and had one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen but there was a lot of degradation going on even then. I could see where some of the lagoons could get silted just from that. Its a major factor in the Philippines.