The global trade in marine ornamental species

Sources of trade data
Clown anemonefish, Amphiprion ocellaris.
records. Data records in GMAD cover 2,393 species (corals,
other invertebrates and fish) from 1988 to 2003. In order
to avoid confusion, unless otherwise stated, the term
invertebrates will be used to refer to all invertebrate
species other than corals.
Each record in GMAD is the total number of
specimens traded for a unique combination of: species
name, country of export, country of import and year.
However, for importers’ data, a large number of records
were submitted by wholesalers without information about
country of origin.
GMAD trade data are linked to two external
databases:
❏ FishBase 58 for photographs of fish species, and fish
distribution and taxonomy, and
❏ the Species Conservation Database 59 for information on
invertebrate taxonomy, distribution, relevant legislation,
conservation status and associated literature and
common names.
It is important to note that trade data cannot be pooled
because some of the contributing importers trade with
some of the contributing exporters. Hence, pooling data
would create duplications. In order to avoid such confusion,
GMAD was designed to allow for import and export data to
be queried separately.
As an example, if interested in the number of
clown anemonefish (Amphiprion ocellaris) traded
between Indonesia and the United States for the year 1999
one can calculate two numbers. The first, based on
importers’ data, shows that 4,223 Amphiprion ocellaris
were imported into the United States from Indonesia
between those years. The second number, based on
export data, shows that 5,565 specimens were exported
from Indonesia to the United States. As of August 2003,
GMAD contains export data from 20 Indonesian
companies (though most of the data provided pertains to
coral exports), and importers’ data from four US
wholesalers. There are, of course, other companies in
Indonesia and the United States trading in Amphiprion
ocellaris that have not contributed their data to GMAD,
and therefore these figures are just a quantitative total
based on data contributed to GMAD by August 2003.
As a consequence of this, GMAD cannot be used
to calculate net volumes of trade in any one species, or
between any pair of countries. Calculations of quantities of
specimens traded in a particular species will be more or
less indicative of the trade in this species depending in part
on the proportion of operational wholesale export and
import companies contributing data to GMAD. However, it
is a very useful tool as an indicator of trends and, for the
first time in the case of fish and invertebrates, it allows
estimates based on quantitative, rather than qualitative,
data to be derived.
17