JPMagyar
New member
I think we can safely say that the Nuclear Industry and Reef Interests are a word apart. The US can declarer a species endanger without input from other country. The laws on endanger species only apply to US ports, which is only affect people in the US.
For example, one cannot bring Ivory products to the US. This law does not apply to other countries, unless they also have similar laws.
Absolutely true Minh, but you missed my point. Just because the folks in Bali don't get to argue about rules affecting US ports doesn't mean they don't have friends in the US or the US Congress who DO have the ability to make public comments on ESA hearings and to demand hearings in their district. Unlike the Ivory trade we can grow corals quite successfully in captivity and I suspect it will be difficult to ignore that simple fact which makes the rule making process very complicated.
Take for example the rule making process on drones. Initially the FAA was set to outright ban all drones, but the Academy of Model Aeronautics got involved and the final rules were vastly altered to accomodate remote control airplane hobbyists. I honestly don't expect any restrictions at all, but if there were to be restrictions I bet there will be significant BUTs that give the aquarium trade some breathing room.
If it did come down to an outright ban I actually would love to take part in some type of lawsuit to get DNA testing done to try and minimize the impact. Biologists can't even agree amongst themselves if 2 corals are the same species so how the heck can the government expect to tell whether I have a weird shaped acropora echinata or a true acropora speciosa which by the way would need to be defined by a DNA holotype since arguably the coral could be considered an animal.
Like I said I may be totally wrong and you all can laugh in my face when the regs come down hard on our hobby, but honestly I just don't see it happening any time soon.
Where's Dustin from ORA? I bet he has a thing or two to say on this topic