The Sustainably Minded Aquarist Part II – Smaller Developing Island Nations And Cultured Fishes

Posted by REEFEDITION on November 18, 2014 - zero

Click through to see the images.

There are myriad reasons why fishes originating in places like Fiji, Solomon Islands, French Polynesia, Cooks Island, New Caledonia, Maldives, and Kiribati are more likely to be sustainable choices over fishes from the larger source countries like Philippines and Indonesia. While there are sustainable aquarium fishers in Philippines and Indonesia (and also questionable ones in some of the smaller nations), there remains a high level of unsustainable and even illegal activity in the larger countries that the sustainably minded aquarist will want to avoid. The challenge is to support the sustainable fisheries or, at the very least, not support the unsustainable ones.

The Importance of Traceability

To support a sustainable fishery half a world away, aquarists need point of origin information. Breeders and some advanced aquarists talk about the concept of knowing where a fish originates as knowing its provenance. To know a fish’s provenance—the exact region or even reef from which it was harvested—is to be able to trace the supply chain from retail store back to the fishery. This is why tractability is so important to the sustainably minded aquarist.