ENVIRONMENTAL AQUARIST		BY JOHN TULLOCK

Conservation Organizations and the Aquarium Industry

This column is devoted to the activities of the American Marinelife Dealers Association (AMDA), which I founded in 1995. The mission of the AMDA is to promote environmentally responsible marine aquarium keeping as an entertaining, educational, and worthwhile leisure time activity. The AMDA has a web site at www.execpc.com/~jkos/amda. You are invited to visit the site for additional information.

First, a little about the organization itself. I served in the capacity of Executive Director for the first two years of the AMDA’s existence. Beginning in 1998, the organization is now led by a group of officers elected from the membership. Any of these individuals can be contacted for additional information about the AMDA. Specific information, including e-mail addresses, is available from the AMDA web site. The present leaders of the AMDA are president Rick Oellers (Aquatic Concepts, Portland, Maine), vice-president Lance Ichinotsubo (Rainbow Seascapes, Las Vegas, Nevada), secretary Teresa Herndon (Sea Critters, Tampa, Florida) and treasurer Mikki Ichinotsubo (Rainbow Seascapes). I will continue to serve as a spokesperson, goodwill ambassador and advisor for as long as the AMDA wants my assistance.

AMDA members have adopted the following pledge as a statement of our Code of Conduct:

“As a member of the American Marinelife Dealers Association, I promise:

to promote, with both words and actions, environmentally responsible marine aquarium keeping as an enjoyable and educational hobby

to represent honestly the condition of the live organisms that I provide

to endeavor to supply accurate information about the care of the organisms I provide

to support captive propagation of marine aquarium organisms

to engage myself and my employees in continuing education, to sharpen our skills as professional marine aquarists, enabling us to better serve our customers”

Since 1995 the AMDA has made considerable progress in several areas. It has accomplished much in only two years, despite the difficulties of getting organized, and, of course, the limited availability of funds. Membership dues were set at only $50 per year in order to encourage even small businesses to join. Many businesses have been generous with additional support. All members receive several benefits from the AMDA, which include:

Skills Recognition — The AMDA is working to develop a system for providing recognition to individual retail businesses that demonstrate proficiency in various aspects of system design, livestock husbandry and customer relations. This is an extraordinarily complex process that is far from complete, but we are working toward that goal. No one else is doing so.

Marinelife Husbandry Database — With the assistance of many people, including Stan Brown of the Breeder’s Registry, Stuart Keefer at the National Aquarium in Baltimore and numerous hobbyists, clubs and dealers, Rick Oellers has shepherded this project through its initial phase. The AMDA web site now has a searchable database of aquarium fish species that provides a simple ranking of each species in terms of its relative ease of care based on the experience of all the people involved in compiling the data. This is available free to any hobbyist or other individual with Internet access.

The database is envisioned as being part of a dynamic, ongoing project. It will be expanded to include more species of fish and invertebrates, with more information about each species, including — we hope — a photograph, in the future. Anyone who disagrees with the rankings, or has information about husbandry that should be included in the database, is invited to share with us. The AMDA is also looking for volunteers for an Advisory Board that will include professional aquarists, scientists and industry experts whose function will be to help ensure that the database contains only accurate information.

Co-Operative Advertising — Members benefit from advertising that the AMDA places in hobbyist magazines. In addition, the AMDA sends its Membership Director to anyone who sends in a self-addressed envelope with 55 cents postage. This allows people who do not have access to the Internet to locate an AMDA member in their area.

AMDA Web Site — Even members without their own web site can have an Internet presence via the AMDA web site.

Quarterly Newsletter — The AMDA publishes a newsletter four times per year to provide news and to offer information to help dealers become better educated about issues of importance to the marine aquarium industry.

Handout Masters — Each new member receives a set of master documents that can be xeroxed and handed out to customers free of charge. These handouts cover basic frequently asked questions about marine aquariums. The orgnization plans to issue more handouts in the future. The handouts are also posted on the web site, and are thus accessible even to those hobbyists who do not shop with AMDA dealers.

Marine Aquarium Fish Council — Perhaps the most important project in which the AMDA is a participant is one that did not originate with the AMDA. This is the development of the Marine Aquarium Fish Council (MAFC). The mission of the MAFC is:

a) Fostering effective coral reef management worldwide through the promotion of environmentally responsible collection, handling and sale of aquarium marine organisms
b) Implementation of a voluntary program of accreditation for best management practices in the collection, handling and sale of aquarium marine life to enhance conservation and effective management of coral reefs
c) Championing the adoption of environmentally and socially responsible management practices that promote conservation of coral reefs and maintain the long-term productivity and profitability of managed coral reefs
d) Education of producers, distributors and consumers of aquarium marine organisms about the need for employment of management practices for conservation of coral reefs, and the nature of such management practices

The MAFC project is an international effort supported by funding from the Packard and Henry Foundations, The World Bank and other philanthropic organizations, including a small amount of money from the AMDA itself. Other organizations that are participating in the MAFC include American Zoo And Aquarium Association, Conservation International, Flora and Fauna International (UK), Haribon Foundation (Philippines), International Marinelife Alliance (Philippines), Ocean Voice International (Canada), Ornamental Fish Industry Ltd. (UK), Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund.

The MAFC holds out to the aquarium hobby and industry the first credible attempt to certify specimen quality, including freedom from cyanide, and proper handling between collection and retail sale. At present, certification would be available only to wholesalers and collectors, but the AMDA is pushing for a system that would also include retail dealers. Information about the MAFC can be obtained by writing to Jamie Resor, Director of Conservation Finance, World Wildlife Fund, 1250 24th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20037.

Future Plans

Besides our ongoing participation in the MAFC and the other activities noted above, AMDA plans additional projects:

Conducting a survey of both dealers and hobbyists to learn how the AMDA can be more effective in reaching its goals, and to find out what people want and expect from the organization

Establishment of a consultation service for members that would deal with problems, such as disease diagnosis and so on

Expansion of the web site

Finally, I would like to address two specific issues arising from a small number of negative comments about the AMDA that have been forwarded to me by various correspondents. First, let’s examine the issue of enforcement of standards. Several people have made the mistake of assuming that the AMDA or another organization can somehow compel “naughty” marine aquarium businesses to follow guidelines and adopt standards. This is simply not possible, neither in a practical sense nor under our system of law. Only the government can compel anyone to act in a certain way, and even its powers are limited by the constitution.

The purpose of forming the AMDA and the MAFC is to put in place a voluntary system of standards, and, we’re hopeful, to create market pressure on non-compliant companies. Thus, AMDA membership is voluntary and is open to anyone who has a business that sells live fish or invertebrates for marine aquariums. While we make every effort to encourage appropriate practices, we cannot promise that all members of the AMDA will be in compliance with any set of standards. In fact, trying to create a situation in which a business could be somehow “blacklisted” for failure to comply would most likely result in an immediate lawsuit.

AMDA members whose places of business I have personally inspected, which is by no means all of them, consistently make a good faith effort to meet their obligations as implied by the member pledge. If the experience of an individual hobbyist with an individual member turns out to be otherwise in the view of the hobbyist, I would strongly urge that hobbyist not to patronize that business in the future. This, obviously, is the ultimate punishment that can be dealt to any business — the loss of a customer.

Hobbyists are also encouraged to write the AMDA with any complaints about members. We will endeavor to open a line of communication between the parties involved that will hopefully result in a resolution of the problem. This is how the Better Business Bureau, for example, handles consumer complaints about its members. There are, however, no guarantees of ultimate satisfaction for either party. Hobbyists who feel that these efforts do not go far enough in addressing the problems are welcome to write their state legislators and their representatives in Congress to ask for laws that would indeed compel dealers to operate their businesses in some particular, prescribed manner.

It would be naive to assume that there will never be a business that joins the AMDA in order to gain recognition — that is, the business owner is merely pretending to be concerned about environmental issues or specimen quality or whatever. However, critics should note that this same business will have contributed its money to promote changes that would ultimately lower its chances of competing successfully in the marketplace. This business is, therefore, supporting a program that does not support it in return. I can imagine no business owner who would be foolish enough to do this if he or she thought about it carefully.

The second type of negative comment concerns the inevitable questions about money. Where does the AMDA get funds, and what does it spend them on? Any fledgling organization with a nationwide scope quickly finds that it must spend considerable effort in simply getting formally organized, and in meeting various legal obligations. AMDA was conceived as a not-for-profit trade association. Such organizations are governed, in part, by Section 501c(6) of the Internal Revenue Service Code. To comply with IRS requirements involves considerable legal costs, several months of work, a huge stack of forms and reports, and documentation of the organization’s bylaws, goals, sources of money, activities and so on. the AMDA expects to complete this expensive and involved process during 1998, but has nevertheless been operating under the IRS guidelines. In particular, two of these guidelines are:

1) The organization is not formed and shall not be conducted nor operated for profit, and no part of its net earnings shall be distributed to or inure to the benefit of any private individual

2) The organization shall not engage in or include among its purposes any activities not permitted to be carried on by such an organization under the federal tax code. (An example of such a prohibited activity would be support of a political party or candidate.)

The take-home point is that no one gets any money from AMDA activities, apart from reimbursements for legitimate, documented expenses. AMDA does not even have any employees at present. Further, the AMDA’s legitimacy and the positive effect of its efforts have been recognized by many of the most respected names in the aquarium hobby, including present and past presidents of the Marine Aquarium Society of North America (MASNA), representatives of the long list of international organizations mentioned above in connection with the MAFC, and such industry luminaries as Martin Moe, Bob Goemans, Larry Jackson, Eric Borneman and many others too numerous to mention individually. As AMDA member J.R. Shute of Aquatic Specialists has pointed out, most of the negative comments appear to be coming from businesses with a vested interest in maintaining the industry status quo.

Comments about this article can be sen to P.O. Box 9118, Knoxville, TN 37940-0118, or e-mailed directly to me.