The global trade in marine ornamental species

From ocean to aquarium
Finger leather/cabbage coral, Lobophytum spp.
of this, coral aquaculture is increasingly mentioned as a
priority solution for reducing the harvest pressures on
coral reefs 190 . An additional advantage is that cultured
coral is acknowledged as adapting better to aquarium
conditions than wild-caught coral 191 .
To date, based on CITES importers’ data (1997-
2001), 99 per cent of the total global trade in live corals
originates from ‘wild’ sources and only 0.3 per cent is
captive bred/ranched, with China (42 per cent), Indonesia
(25 per cent), Taiwan (10 per cent), the Marshall Islands
(5 per cent), the Solomon Islands (4 per cent), Nicaragua
(2 per cent), Tonga, the United States and Micronesia
accounting for 99 per cent of total non-wild exports.
The aquaculture of corals, both soft and stony,
refers to coral propagation by fragmenting a large colony
(mother colony) into smaller pieces, or pruning the tips
of larger colonies, and subsequently attaching the
fragments to a new substrate using superglue or suspending
them in water on a nylon line. These fragments
are then left to grow in holding tanks or placed back into
the sea until they have reached a marketable size. Most
branching corals, for example, can be easily propagated
from small trimmings clipped from a parent colony and
achieve, in about a year, a five- to ten-fold increase in
biomass. Soft coral fragments can grow to a marketable
size within four to twelve months 184 and stony corals (e.g.
Acropora spp.) within four to six months 192 . Pacific Farms,
a company based in Los Angeles, and with stations in Fiji
and Tonga, is one of the largest in the coral mariculture
business with a team capable of fragmenting and planting
1,500 new corals a day 193 .
More than 75 species of coral can be captive bred,
but only fast-growing corals appear to be economically
profitable 74 . Hence propagation in species of stony coral
is mainly targeted at the fast growing branching
species such as Acropora, Pocillopora, Seriatopora and
Stylophora 194 . Unfortunately, most of the popular species
in trade such as Blastomussa, Plerogyra, Trachyphyllia
and Goniopora are slow growing, have little presently
known about their life histories and characteristics and so
are difficult to propagate.
Soft corals such as Clavularia, Sarcophyton,
Lobophytum, Sinularia, Alcyonium and Cladiella are
suitable for aquarium propagation, due to their ability to
heal wounds and regenerate tissue rapidly. The most
commonly used practice for soft coral propagation is to
simply remove, underwater, a piece of tissue from the
parent colony using sharp scissors or a scalpel. Freshly
cut specimens should be left exposed to fresh seawater
motion or dipped in fine sand, for one or two weeks. They
can subsequently be tied or glued to appropriate
substrate and harvested within four to twelve months.
Cladiella spp. and other azooxanthellate species that are
sensitive to fragmentation are almost impossible to
propagate 64, 184 .
When setting up coral farms, besides investigating
which species are most suitable for propagation, the cost
effectiveness of such enterprises needs to be explored 195 .
A study of the economic viability of a community-based
coral farm situated on an Indo-Pacific Island demonstrated
that even after ten years of operation the facility
would remain in debt 190 . The main reasons included high
start-up costs, high operating costs and fairly low returns
in comparison with wild-caught products. This may be
true of newly set-up farming operations. On the other
hand, should established exporters develop farming as a
side activity, costs would be greatly reduced, as they
would only have to bear the expense of the equipment in
the grow-out facilities and labour costs. With time it is
then expected that cultured corals would become the
main source of exports. Non-governmental organizations
are likely to play an important role in encouraging and
securing potential initial funding (with governments and
foreign aid as the most probable source) to kick-start
farming activities and provide local community members
with the required training.
An example of a successful coral mariculture
initiative comes from the Solomon Islands where a group
of 25 women have been growing about 12 different
species of hard corals and a few species of soft corals.
Small nubbings of live coral are attached to concrete
discs, placed in trays and left to grow in carefully chosen
sites for four to six months until the fragments have
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