Earlier this month Reef Builders brought you the news after a long wait, EcoAquarium PNG resurrected sustainably-collected marine fish from Papua New Guinea and is pushing to bring PNG-collected fish to the aquarium market. Reef Builders went beyond EcoAquarium PNG’s initial press release to get answers to the questions that a market now “once bitten, twice shy” on PNG, must be asking. Daniel Navin, Director of EcoAquariums PNG LTD, shed more light on the next chapter in PNG marine aquarium fish exports.
重建器:How is EcoAquariums (EA) going to be different from its predecessor, the Government and EcoEZ partnership of SEASMART (SS)?
Navin：EA is a privately funded company, while SS was a government funded program. EA will be focusing on the same core principles as SS (sustainability, equitability, high quality) but in a more market driven, and fiscally responsible fashion. We have a much more efficient business model than SS ever did, all while being able to offer more species to our target market. EcoAquariums will be relying on the NFA to carry out most of the reef surveys in the future, and to establish the TAC’s that we abide by.”
重建器:Being a privately funded company, who are the stakeholders in EA?
Navin：I have a local partner here who invested into 10% of the company. He is also a Fisherman Island resident and his name is Iga Ware. Iga invested in the company with his boat, time and experience. The rest of the investors are Americans, who shall remain anonymous, for now. I will say that they have no affiliation with the aquarium trade. I am the sole director.
重建器:Besides yourself, are there any other ex-SEASMART employees playing a role in this new firm?
Navin：Iga Ware, who is part owner, is a former SS employee. Additionally, all of the village-based fish collectors were collectors for SS. They are not actually employees of the company though but more like their own little businesses, who catch the fish and sell them to EcoAquariums.
重建器:Regarding the village-based fish collectors, point-blank, we’re going to ask — can you show us a real world example of the price chain on a common fish so we can unequivocably say yes, the people of PNG are being payed much better, and more fairly, for their collections? We realize we’re asking for far more transparency than is normal here. We’re asking on the grounds of turning a new leaf in the industry and “putting our money where our mouths are.” Don’t just say it’s equitable, prove it!
Navin：I agree, this information should be out in the open. While we are still finalizing our price list, for our clients, as well as our fishers, I will say that different species will have different markups depending on how difficult they are to catch, and how much effort, and fuel, the fisher must put into catching them. Fish like blue tags (hippo tangs) are difficult to catch and are a bit of a boat ride. These fish we would not mark up as much as something easily scooped up, like a percula. This ensures that the fishers are getting a higher price for the fish they are working harder to catch. More on this in much more detail soon.
重建器:我们注意到提到了更深层次的收藏（需要减压的鱼），也许不太严格避免使用SS的鱼类，而SS将避免以“它们通常在囚禁中做得不好”而避免收集。与SS的仅浅水政策相比，我们应该期望EA的物种可用性扩大吗？
Navin：Definitely expect an expanded species list. We are still finalizing our species and price list, but when it is finished, I’ll send it out to you. With SS, only shallow water fish were collected. At that, it was only the shallow water fish that could be collected容易地which were collected. Now that we will be introducing scuba, we will have almost double the species on offer that SS could regularly provide. PNG has a wealth of species diversity and SS only scratched the surface.
重建器:SEASMART cited a few reasons that they chose to avoid scuba when designing the policies of SS. The concerns included safety, costs, reef monitoring issues, and a concern to ensure that only PNG natives were doing collection.
EA如何解决与辅助潜水收集有关的安全问题？
Navin：安全至关重要。安全总是并且永远会首先。没有潜水员在没有国际公认的权威（例如帕迪）颁发的潜水许可的情况下使用潜水员。
We will be using one, possibly two ex-pats to train our local divers on the many various tips and tricks to effectively catch fish while on scuba. All PNG citizens collecting on scuba will be collecting with an ex-pat trainer and mentor for at least the first few months. It takes way more than a PADI license to be able to go out and catch fish effectively with a scuba tank. Any fish that an expat trainer/mentor collects while diving, EcoAquariums will pay the value of said fish to the village that the fish came from, split evenly amongst the fishers from that village. Expat trainers will be paid a salary and not paid per fish, like the collectors are. Eventually, when we have enough PNG citizens trained on scuba collection, we will phase out our ex-pat trainers.
重建器:Alright, you’ve addressed both safety issues and concerns regarding non-native fisherman working as collectors. How does this all get paid for?
Navin：Collecting on scuba is critical for reaching the myriad species that PNG has to offer. Free divers can only collect fish from the shallows, and at that, only the fish that are easily caught on a breath hold. That pretty much rules out most of your cryptic, reclusive fish in the shallows like most gobies and blennies, and anything that likes to hang below five meters depth.
Having even just a few scuba collectors will allow EcoAquariums to offer a much wider range of species to our clients than SS ever could. Having scuba collectors will almost double the amount of species that we could offer otherwise.
Having a large species mix on offer, with a number of “higher value” fish available to mix into a shipment, is what drives customers to place orders. No one wants to order a few hundred kilograms of damsels and common butterflies. But add a few higher value, in-demand species to that order, and suddenly everyone wants to order from you.
So, having scuba collectors will help us to get more of a species mix on offer, which will help us to attract more clients, which will in turn allow us to sell more of the fish that the free divers are collecting. The scuba collectors are essentially driving the sales of the free dive collected fish.
重建器:And the issue of monitoring collections?
Navin：Regarding monitoring, Total Allowable Catch figures still apply to scuba collectors. A TAC is a TAC, whether you’re holding your breath, or using a scuba tank.
重建器:我们的理解是,现有的调查areas, and the TACs for those areas, were limited to shallow waters, and thus, shallow water species. Can you explain how scuba-based collection will work given that to-date, deeper waters have not been surveyed nor had TACs established yet?
Navin：借助TAC，确实考虑了SS在SS期间建立的原始TAC，并考虑了浅水收集。在大多数情况下，珊瑚礁调查从未超过10米。但是，这些调查仍然遇到并确定了500多种可以用于贸易的鱼类。[因此]我们[我们已经]已经为大多数物种建立了TAC，我们将与水肺遇到。如果并且当我们遇到没有TAC的新物种时，我们将进行特定于物种的快速珊瑚礁调查，以了解那里的这些鱼的数量，以便我们可以制定TAC。
The TACs will be adjusted in the future, when the new round of surveys is complete, which will include deeper water surveys. But the fact is that the current TACs will be more than effective for scuba collection. I say this [because] when we start diving deeper, we are expanding the size of our collection area, which means that we are theoretically capable of removing a higher number of fish sustainably [RB: quantities higher than the current overall TACs would permit]. Remember, the TACs are calculated by factoring in the density of fish in a given area. Expand that area, and encounter more fish in that expanded area, and you increase the TAC. The new round of surveys should reflect this, and increase our TACs for most species.
The NFA is forming a seven-man team that will be dedicated to overseeing and monitoring the aquarium fishery. This team will also be responsible for performing the future reef surveys, which should begin next month. The majority of this team will be made up of former SS reef surveyors. I eventually want to post all the TAC information on our website, so that the public can go on and see just what our TACs are, and how many fish we have exported.
重建器:一旦您收集了所有这些鱼，在出口之前，它们要去哪里？您能告诉我们有关您的设施的什么？
Navin：At this stage, we are building a simple, open air style warehouse facility that will serve as our fish holding and export station. The facility is being constructed as we speak.
重建器:So when can we expect the first shipments of fish from PNG?
Navin：We expect to be fully operational in the next two months.
重建器:我们知道SS正在积极追求珊瑚农业项目。EA会试图复活这个项目吗？
Navin：珊瑚农业无疑是EA的很大一部分s business model. I came to PNG originally to work as the coral mariculture operations manager for SS and I definitly plan to continue my efforts to make coral farming a reality in PNG. At this time, PNG does not provide CITES permits to export corals, even farmed corals. But that will hopefully change soon and the NFA is very supportive of the idea of exporting sustainably farmed coral. Hopefully, we are just a few meetings away from securing the permits! I am planning to kick start coral mariculture efforts in the coming weeks.
重建器:We look forward to more news out of PNG in the near future. And hopefully, among many other fish, you’ll be able to bring in some of the newEviota dorsopurpurea gobiesthat we wrote about Thanks for taking the time to talk shop with us Dan!
