TIM eMagazine Vol.3 Issue 6
Gregg Yan
Best Alternatives Founder
and Director
T
he recent apprehension of
a suspected smuggler with
thousands of live corals
and several giant clams in
Bacoor, Cavite last week has
ignited public furor over the
continued trade in protected
marine life.
A Filipino environmental
group offers a solution.
“Now is the perfect time to shift to sustainable
alternatives to corals and seashells,” says Gregg
Yan, founder and director of environmental
nonprofit Best Alternatives.
Though legally protected, corals – generally
classified as either ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ depending
on whether they form skeletons made of
calcium carbonate – are collected for the
aquarium, jewellery and curio (display) trades.
Live hard and soft corals are kept by many
aquarium hobbyists but require state-of-the-art
equipment and special care to survive.
Slow-growing red corals are hewn into
jewellery, while plate, staghorn and mushroom
corals are collected, dried and bleached for
display. Vast numbers of seashells and other
invertebrates like seastars are also gathered,
dried and exported to other nations.
The Fisheries Code of the Philippines (RA
10654) prevents the gathering, possession,
transport and sale of ordinary, semi-precious
and precious corals except for scientific
Artificial staghorn corals provide
shelter for a maroon clownfish inside
a marine aquarium. Shifting to faux
corals can end the illegal trade in
hard reef-building corals. (Gregg Yan /
Best Alternatives)
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