The biggest threat to our hobby

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Dearth

Gave them my two bits

Question

Does this potential law cover North America or just the US? I understand the potential impact it will have on reefers in Canada but if the law only covers the US then any potential coral covered that would be deemed Illegal would apply only to Canadians if we tried to buy/sell or trade to anybody from the US or Protected US waters. If it covers North America then it's a different story

Just an observation

The ESA is a US piece of legislation. However, I'm not sure how ESA and CITES interact with each other. If the inclusion of these species on the US ESA somehow gets them uplisted on CITES, then it would affect all countries who have signed that treaty (Canada being one).

In either case, it would likely put many of the coral wholesalers that Canadian retailers get their stock from out of business.

TBH, CITES would be a far more responsible and reflexive tool through which to regulate the international trade in these animals, as it leaves room for countries with well managed populations to split list them between the 3 Appendixes. CITES could theoretically be used to ban the export and collection of wild threatened species, but permit the trade and export of maricultured or farmed versions. However, it's pretty clear that the Centre for Biological Diversity's goals are largely political, and they're using these species as a pawn in their attempt to force US action on climate change, so I'm not surprised they're going the route they're going.