Loading ...After Vlad’s post yesterday, I read this article (long, but worth the read) about Fiji water on Mother Jones. The article captures the effects of a moral VS money struggle very well, albeit an extreme example.
Moments later, a pair of police officers walked in. They headed for a woman at another terminal; I turned to my screen to compose a note about how cops were even showing up in the Internet cafés. Then I saw them coming toward me. “We’re going to take you in for questioning about the emails you’ve been writing,” they said.
What followed, in a windowless room at the main police station, felt like a bad cop movie. “Who are you really?” the bespectacled inspector wearing a khaki uniform and a smug grin asked me over and over, as if my passport, press credentials, and stacks of notes about Fiji Water weren’t sufficient clues to my identity. (My iPod, he surmised tensely, was “good for transmitting information.”) I asked him to call my editors, even a UN official who could vouch for me. “Shut up!” he snapped. He rifled through my bags, read my notebooks and emails. “I’d hate to see a young lady like you go into a jail full of men,” he averred, smiling grimly. “You know what happened to women during the 2000 coup, don’t you?”
It brings to mind questions about what kind of places our coral comes from. Fiji is one of my favourite places for coral. I especially love the zoanthids which are bright and colourful. However, if we buy coral sourced from there, are we supporting militaristic regimes?
Until that day, I hadn’t fully appreciated the paranoia of Fiji’s military regime. The junta had been declared unconstitutional the previous week by the country’s second highest court; in response it had abolished the judiciary, banned unauthorized public gatherings, delayed elections until 2014, and clamped down on the media. (Only the “journalism of hope” is now permitted.) The prime minister, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, promised to root out corruption and bring democracy to a country that has seen four coups in the past 25 years; the government said it will start working on a new constitution in 2012.
The slogan on Fiji Water’s website—”And remember this—we saved you a trip to Fiji”—suddenly felt like a dark joke. Every day, more soldiers showed up on the streets. When I called the courthouse, not a single official would give me his name. Even tour guides were running scared—one told me that one of his colleagues had been picked up and beaten for talking politics with tourists. When I later asked Fiji Water spokesman Rob Six what the company thought of all this, he said the policy was not to comment on the government “unless something really affects us.”
What, as reefers, are we to do? I’ve always believed in voting with your wallet. Do we only buy locally propagated coral? Do we have a watchdog entity that warns us about coral that’s coming from a locale as corrupt as Fiji? Are there countries that depend that much on coral export? Are there coral exporters who are that corrupt? How do we know who they are? I don’t know what the answers are to any of those questions and as a conscientious aquarist, that bothers me.
This was a distressing article for me to read, and it certainly puts the hobby I love in a new light.
(link via tree hugger. image source.)
Related posts:
- Update From Fiji
- Cold water coral
- No more Vietnamese clams
- Meet your maker…. in water?
- Water testing services
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
In the hobby since 2001, and has seen all kinds of fads come and go. As he gets older, Jeff is developing more and more of a conscience towards environmental concerns, especially towards reefs. Currently, he writes from Ontario, Canada, but would rather be snorkeling on a reef.
It is funny and yet disturbing. For most north americans that lived all their lives in developed western countries with a democratic government structure and legal structure, it is often assumed the same should be observed in other countries especially all these 3rd world coral exporting countries.
Yes you read it correctly, most of the places that we are getting 90% of our corals from are 3rd world countries that have a very low living standards and their people have to sell their natural resources for dirt cheap to find food for their family and food. Indonesia, Tonga, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Fiji, Polynesia etc.etc. With very minor exception like Australia (then all the reefers complain about paying $300 colonies (in Canada) – $800 colonies in US).
Sometimes I question whether if this industry (LFS, wholesaler, exporters, importers, hobbyists, squarist) as a whole even have a right to talk about animal rights and morals. The whole industry is built upon the cheap exploitation of 3rd world countries and their natural resources. 99% of the livestock that we get are coming from the wild and the majority of the people (consumers & industry people alike).
If the writers is not white and not with US passport, she would already disappeared quietly – that’s how these coral export countries work; so would you prefer $300 corals or $60 corals on a moral ground?
.. but on the other hand, nobody brings in fiji corals anymore these days … so I guess that’s not a problem ;D
Lastly as to these questions – “Are there coral exporters who are that corrupt? How do we know who they are?”, I think anybody that do a search knows, only one or two exporters in that area of the world, it’s almost monopoly.
Could this not be equated with the blood diamonds of South Africa?
@Hubert – I don’t subscribe to white man’s guilt.
@Gobiodon – I don’t think it’s as extreme, but it’s certainly robbing the natives of their natural resources.