Recent content by Ret_Talbot

The fact you say price is almost a non factor (almost) is very similar to what I hear aquarists say around the country when I'm speaking. It will be interesting to see if, given the chance, a critical mass is willing to put their money where their mouth is at the point of sale. It certainly...

This is a good point. Unfortunately, I suspect we are in a place in the marine aquarium trade where point-of-origin--even if only island specific (e.g., Fiji, Hawai'i)--is still a sustainably-minded aquarists best bet in terms of using his or her purchasing power to support sustainability. Can I...

I hear ya. The fisheries divisions in most of these countries are involved in varying degrees with marine aquarium fisheries. The PNG National Fisheries Authority (NFA) sees value (for a variety of reasons) in a sustainable marine aquarium fishery. Many people close to fisheries issues in...

I love region-specific aquaria. These labels with point-of-origin information from EcoAquariums and Quality Marine will make keeping such a tank a reality. More value added for the aquarist!

Yep. He told me in the CORAL Magazine interview "late January or early February", but I like to hedge my bets a bit when it comes to PNG. :-) Apparently AquaTech Imports, Inc. is lined up for the first North American shipment. Ret

Thanks for the post, Barry. For those of you who don't know who Dan is, Dan Navin--the director of EcoAquariums Papua New Guinea, Ltd. (if you want, you can link to their website through my Reefs.com blog entry on ecolabelling). As Barry knows, I have been following the PNG story for a couple...

Absolutely on the point regarding the need for more education! This is actually a central fixture of my most popular talk "Sustainable Marine Aquarium Fisheries", and it is the motivating force behind my multi-year series of articles in Coral Magazine on various fisheries throughout the Pacific...

In my blog entry on Reefs.com, I mention three companies who either have launched or say they are soon to launch an ecolabelling program. The only one that is available to aquarists in North America right now is the Quality Marine QR code tag. QM announced their QR code tag in mid-December, and...

Got it! :-) Thanks, and you are correct on my role in all this!

In case anyone can't find my reefs.com blog entry on ecolabelling, you can read it here: http://www.reefs.com/blog/2011/12/27/ecolabelling-and-the-marine-aquarium-trade/ Ret

Hi there! You emailed me? Not sure I received it. Just to be clear, I'm just a journalist in all this with no affiliation with any one company about which I have been writing. I think you bring up a good point about transparency. Ecolabelling does suggest a level of transparency that is very...

Thanks for the welcome! I may live in Southern California now, but I grew up in the tri-state area, so MR does feel more than a bit like home. :-) I've been doing a lot of background research into MAC over the past several years given my assignments having to do with sustainable wild collection...

Hi, All. I'm working on a story about how ecolabelling may impact the marine aquarium trade, and I'm interested in any anecdotes or observations any aquarist might have on the topic. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can get an overview by quickly reading my blog post on ecolabels...

Thanks to all of you who have sent people my direction or helped to set-up meetings. At this point I have a wide swath of interviews lined up, but I'd like more fishers, especially fishers who have been around the trade in Hawaii for a decade or more.

Robert Wintner inspired, at least in part, the story. ;-)