cortez marine
In Memoriam
Funding Failure; World bank initiative pulls the plug on MAC.
For all the people out there who were naive enough to believe in the Marine Aquarium Councils approach to aquarium industry reform have a look.
Indeed it was the Marine Aquarium Council that was in need of reform.
For 10 years I and others exposed them in RDO and in this forum.
Now the World Bank agrees and has given them the greatest vote of no confidence; ie project and funding cancellation as a result of their chronic incompetence, cultural insensitivity and false claim to have the experience to do the job.
From the beginning MAC alienated real reform elements within the trade and followed the money. They rendered a de-facto whitewash of the cyanide traders in The Philippines and Indonesia for a decade.
The fact that MAC claimed [ and was believed!] "to have it under control" gave the cyanide trade a sense of legal cover the proof of co-operation they needed to get off the hook."
They relaxed efforts to really support netcaught fish collecting and allowed the reform of the industry to drift away.
The cyanide trade continues to this day and is quite rampant in Indonesia now even more so then the Philippines.
Sincerely,
Steve
[See below the summary taken from a hard to find report from the World Banks GEF auditor.....MAMTI_MidTermReview[1].pdf
]
Subject: MAMTI
Asia: Marine Aquarium Market Transformation Initiative (MAMTI)
With GEF funding of $7,365,000 (project cost $22,731,000) in September 2004, the
project uses conservation management and rehabilitation to ensure the health of
coral reef ecosystems and their contribution to poverty alleviation and food
security, by 1) transforming at least 17 percent of the worldwide marine
aquarium industry, 2) establishing marine management areas, and 3) increasing
awareness of the benefits of harvesting marine ornamentals in a manner that
conserves global biodiversity. The objective is to transform the marine aquarium
trade of the Philippines and Indonesia to ecological and economic
sustainability.
An independent Mid-Term Review (MTR) was conducted and determined that the
project was not achieving meaningful results in developing a sustainable system
for certifying marine aquarium organisms that fostered market transformation.
Recurrent problems with the sponsor's management of the project - grant
resources and multi-stakeholder processes in particular - and the inability to
adapt the project approach to new information, have irreparably damaged the
critical partnerships upon which the project was founded.
Based on the MTR and
project supervision, IFC has decided to cancel the grant to the Marine Aquarium
Council (MAC) and terminate the MAMTI project.
_______________________________________________________________
This summary has not seen the light of day...until TODAY.
Steve
For all the people out there who were naive enough to believe in the Marine Aquarium Councils approach to aquarium industry reform have a look.
Indeed it was the Marine Aquarium Council that was in need of reform.
For 10 years I and others exposed them in RDO and in this forum.
Now the World Bank agrees and has given them the greatest vote of no confidence; ie project and funding cancellation as a result of their chronic incompetence, cultural insensitivity and false claim to have the experience to do the job.
From the beginning MAC alienated real reform elements within the trade and followed the money. They rendered a de-facto whitewash of the cyanide traders in The Philippines and Indonesia for a decade.
The fact that MAC claimed [ and was believed!] "to have it under control" gave the cyanide trade a sense of legal cover the proof of co-operation they needed to get off the hook."
They relaxed efforts to really support netcaught fish collecting and allowed the reform of the industry to drift away.
The cyanide trade continues to this day and is quite rampant in Indonesia now even more so then the Philippines.
Sincerely,
Steve
[See below the summary taken from a hard to find report from the World Banks GEF auditor.....MAMTI_MidTermReview[1].pdf
]
Subject: MAMTI
Asia: Marine Aquarium Market Transformation Initiative (MAMTI)
With GEF funding of $7,365,000 (project cost $22,731,000) in September 2004, the
project uses conservation management and rehabilitation to ensure the health of
coral reef ecosystems and their contribution to poverty alleviation and food
security, by 1) transforming at least 17 percent of the worldwide marine
aquarium industry, 2) establishing marine management areas, and 3) increasing
awareness of the benefits of harvesting marine ornamentals in a manner that
conserves global biodiversity. The objective is to transform the marine aquarium
trade of the Philippines and Indonesia to ecological and economic
sustainability.
An independent Mid-Term Review (MTR) was conducted and determined that the
project was not achieving meaningful results in developing a sustainable system
for certifying marine aquarium organisms that fostered market transformation.
Recurrent problems with the sponsor's management of the project - grant
resources and multi-stakeholder processes in particular - and the inability to
adapt the project approach to new information, have irreparably damaged the
critical partnerships upon which the project was founded.
Based on the MTR and
project supervision, IFC has decided to cancel the grant to the Marine Aquarium
Council (MAC) and terminate the MAMTI project.
_______________________________________________________________
This summary has not seen the light of day...until TODAY.
Steve
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