Music
CORCORAN: Port Vila, the languid capital of Vanuatu, is a laid-back tourist paradise where the sea is a bountiful supplier of both food and income. In recent years, the Port has become better known as a raffish international tax haven and home to more than its fair share of corrupt politicians. Now, Vanuatu has tapped into a new money-spinner as the source of some of the best quality tropical aquarium fish in the world.
CORCORAN: Where are your main markets?LARRY DACLES: Australia and US.
Everybody want it because of this Nemo film. I can tell you it helps also with children, you know asking for Nemo.
CORCORAN: Every morning the divers prepare to set out from Port Vila to harvest reefs off the main island Efate.
They work for Sustainable Reef Supplies or SRS, part owned by one of the biggest players in the aquarium fish trade, the American based Segrest farms.
Centred on developing countries, this global industry is growing at a phenomenal rate. According to the United Nations, twenty million fish worth five hundred million dollars will be caught this year. Industry insiders say the real figure is double that. Western nations tightly regulate the trade but elsewhere these diving teams have earned the dubious nickname of reef wreckers.
Music
CORCORAN: In Indonesia and the Philippines they use cyanide to stun then catch fish with catastrophic results for the reefs. In Fiji divers break off tonnes of live coral to decorate fish tanks, but theres none of that here in Vanuatu. SRS boasts a policy of industry best practice, a sustainable and environmentally sensitive approach using only hand nets.
It is quite literally money for the taking and according to SRS manager Larry Dacles, everyone shares in the catch.
LARRY DACLES: The benefits we are bringing here, we employ Vanuatu people.
We are training them, the divers. We are paying the custom owner, the reef owner as I said, and we are paying the fisheries 2% of our sales every month.
CORCORAN: Demand is greatest for clown fish, even if the Vanuatu variety isnt exactly the same Nemo as seen in the movie.
CORCORAN: So this is Nemos cousin?
BOAT SKIPPER: Yeah clownfish like this, Nemos cousin.
Music
CORCORAN: Vanuatus tourism operators believe there are more lucrative ways of capitalising on the worlds growing fascination with Nemos cousins.
Music
MIKE CRAWFORD: We like to sell to kids or to young people Come and see Nemo do an introductory dive or discover scuba diving and come and see Nemo - so it has obviously got a big effect.
CORCORAN: Mike Crawford runs the dive shop on the Hideaway Island resort. Tourism is one of Vanuatus few viable industries. Take away the fish and he says you lose the tourists Hideaway Island is afforded some protection as a marine reserve but thats not the case on ten other reefs that SRS has been harvesting for the past three years.
MIKE CRAWFORD: I know of some areas where there is nowhere near the amount, probably 50% of the fish life as to what there was ten or fifteen years ago. I have seen when I first came here, lots more on a lot of these islands and Ive actually seen now that youve got to really look hard to find certain types of fish on some of the islands. And the numbers are nowhere near as many.
CORCORAN: At SRSs warehouse, Nemos cousin and the rest of the catch is unloaded and sorted. Catching tropical fish is still much cheaper than the extremely difficult task of breeding them in tanks.
Keeping them alive can be problematic. The yellowish colour of the tank water is caused by antibiotics and other drugs pumped in to heal injuries and reduce stress. In the Philippines, up to half of the fish caught using cyanide can die shortly after capture or go belly up soon after being sold to unsuspecting customers. Larry Dacles insists that SRSs dead on arrival or DOA rate is much lower.
LARRY DACLES: Here we ship one hundred fish and only one DOA so thats less than 1% because of quality and how we take care of fish.
CORCORAN: On the day of our tour we saw only one dead fish in the entire facility, but other visitors tell a very different story.MIKE CRAWFORD: Ive actually been down to the tanks and Ive seen them putting syringe needles into the fishes belly to relieve the air to prevent them from dying, but Ive also seen in the same tank probably twenty fish floating around dead.
Music
CORCORAN: Chief Mor Mor is one of ten traditional or custom leaders paid by SRS for the right to fish his reef.
His village recently played host to the American Television show Survivor but apart from that brief brush with reality TV, his people survive on what they catch at sea. The colourful but largely inedible tropical fish were ignored until SRS arrived.
CHIEF MOR MOR: We thought oh this is good so we ask them to come and we allow them to fish and we get some money from them to run the village and community.
CORCORAN: Chief Mor Mor initially asked for the equivalent of nine hundred U.S. dollars a month, but reluctantly agreed to be paid just ninety dollars when SRS threatened to go elsewhere.
CORCORAN: Do you think that is a fair price?
CHIEF MOR MOR: Well I accept that because I mean they dont fish every day. Maybe they come one time only for a month and then they never come. Maybe the price is not good but then at the end of every month we have something, whereas if we say no, maybe we have nothing.
JAMES ARMITAGE: Well put it this way, five Filipino divers on that one reef will collect five thousand Australian dollars worth of fish in one day. You know? Whos getting the short end of the stick? They should be getting a lot more money, yes thats right.
CORCORAN: James Armitage speaks with the knowledge of an insider. For a decade he ran a small business buying tropical fish from the villagers. In 2002 a group of American businessmen asked him to help establish SRS Vanuatu. He didnt like what he saw and quit last year.
JAMES ARMITAGE: Thats the Hideaway Island marine reserve sanctuary.
The divers used to go out there at night time and collect specific types of fish that you can collect much easier at night.
CORCORAN: But this is a marine reserve isnt it?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Yeah, thats right yeah.
CORCORAN: Collecting illegally but nobody really cares?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Yeah.
CORCORAN: James says SRS wanted an immediate tenfold increase in production and brought in Filipino divers to do the job.
JAMES ARMITAGE: I think its a little bit out of control. I think someone needs to control them and needs to get a good idea of what theyre actually doing.
CORCORAN: Is that happening now?
JAMES ARMITAGE: No. No, definitely not. Basically its a free for all.
CORCORAN: So how long has this boat been out of action for?
KALO PAKOA: This boat was sitting here for the last four years.
CORCORAN: Kalo Pakoa of the Vanuatu Fisheries Department argues that he lacks the resources to effectively monitor the aquarium trade.
KALO PAKOA: This is the main Fisheries Department workshop.
CORCORAN: Without the least sense of irony, Vanuatu has proclaimed 2004 to be the Year of Fisheries. There are eighty-three islands and two and a half thousand kilometres of coastline and yet none of Fisheries three vessels have put to sea for years.
CORCORAN: So this boat is in the water but how long has it been tied up for?
KALO PAKOA: For the last three years.
CORCORAN: Yeah?
KALO PAKOA: They do some repair and now it is just about to make its first trip to the islands.
CORCORAN: First time in three years?
KALO PAKOA: In three years, yes. Its a long time. The outboard motors are all faulty.
CORCORAN: And whats in the containers?
KALO PAKOA: These containers are stored with tools. Right now the tools are not, a lot of the tools have been missing. They are not of much use.
CORCORAN: Everything is gone, been stolen?
KALO PAKOA: Yes. Most have been stolen.
CORCORAN: For ten years Fisheries was funded by a European Union aid project, but was left high and dry when the scheme ended. Its an all too common tale in Pacific island nations.
KALO PAKOA: Its not my fault. Its not anyones fault. Its a situation of having a lot of assistance at once, they come in with a lump sum of resources, with technical expertise and then once the project ends, all the resources stop coming in.
CORCORAN: Back at SRS, business is booming. Nemos cousin is being bagged and tagged. Hes joining an airfreight consignment bound for Sydney with just enough oxygen and water to get him through the overnight ordeal.LARRY DACLES: This one is very in demand because they are very, very nice in tanks and Australia market and the US market like it very much.
CORCORAN: SRS pays Vanuatus Government just 2% of the declared wholesale price of every fish. For example, SRS prices each of these Flame Angels at nine dollars, yet theyll sell for sixty dollars so Vanuatu gets just eighteen cents for each sixty dollar fish.
Theres also something fishy about the exact numbers being exported. No one from the Fisheries Department bothers to show up and count the fish in each consignment. Those figures are provided by SRS. Officially seventy thousand fish were exported last year. The only problem is, the numbers dont add up.
CORCORAN: Seventy thousand?
KALO PAKOA: Yes.
CORCORAN: I spoke to Heidi Bartram, who was a marine biologist who worked here. She went through the files and counted last year and her estimate was that they exported at least a hundred and eighty thousand fish.
KALO PAKOA: That figure is over-estimated.
CORCORAN: And he also denies his own departments internal estimate that SRS exports will increase to a quarter of a million fish this year, up from just twenty thousand three years ago. Former SRS insider James Armitage says that while villagers and the State are exploited, plenty of money has gone into the pockets of Vanuatus politicians and bureaucrats.
JAMES ARMITAGE: Initially they came in and there was a lot of resistance. They were told that they couldnt, everything, all bets were off. They werent going to get a licence and things turned around and they managed to get their licence by some help of some influential people and theyve moved ahead ever since.
CORCORAN: How did they get that influence? What did they do?
JAMES ARMITAGE: They paid them.
CORCORAN: How much?
JAMES ARMITAGE: I wasnt privy to the inner circle at that stage and Im not sure exactly who was, where the money was ending up but it was thousands of dollars a week.
CORCORAN: And did you ever see money exchanging hands? Cheques?
JAMES ARMITAGE: I saw cheques going out the door yeah.
CORCORAN: For what amounts?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Thousands of dollars.
CORCORAN: A week?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Yeah. The actual fellow who came across here to set up SRS was blatant about it and was willing to offer it. His words were, Thats how we did it in Fiji. Thats how we did it in Indonesia. Well do it here.
CORCORAN: You havent heard stories about that?
KALO PAKOA: I have not idea. I havent heard any stories about that. Even the Fisheries Department was accused over being bribed by this company. This information were all false.
CORCORAN: Now who, who made that accusation?
KALO PAKOA: I dont know but its rumours that was brought up last year, which is all false information.
CORCORAN: Some communities have resisted the lure of SRS. On the island of Nguna the Magic Man declares a taboo, invoking the spirits to protect the fish of the local reef by planting a leaf for all to see. According to custom, those who defy the taboo risk sickness or death.
CHRIS BARTLETT: The Chiefs got together about three years ago, noticing that some of their primary resources
were declining such as trochus, giant clams, and some of the fish food resources and they wanted to put a stop to that.
CORCORAN: American marine biologist, Chris Bartlett, was invited here by the Chiefs of Nguna and the adjoining island of Pele to supervise the creation of Vanuatus only custom or traditional marine park. Initially set up to protect food fish, the taboo has now been extended to the aquarium trade. Tourists are welcome as long as they look but dont touch. Unless of course they want to lend a hand with the islands sea turtle tagging programme.
Music
Chris Bartlett spends much of his working day beneath the waves, tending to the islands extraordinary coral gardens, untouched by SRS. He fears that losing aquarium fish would lead to a drastic reduction in the numbers of eating fish, which are the islands main source of food.CHRIS BARTLETT: Now the aquarium fish, theyre the grazers of the reef. Theyre the lawnmowers, so be it, and they keep the algae down.
If that algae gets out of control, it could completely destroy the habitat, the reef habitat by overgrowing with algae. That will in turn affect the food fish that use the reef as a breeding site and just a living area.
Music
CORCORAN: Very little research has been conducted on the long term impact of the aquarium trade until now. Chris Bartlett has just finished working with a team of marine biologists from Queenslands James Cook University and the environmental group Reef Check. Their findings are disturbing. In just three years, SRS operations have halved tropical fish numbers.
CHRIS BARTLETT: The results are quite significant. We found that theres a 50% reduction in sites that have not been protected, that have been over harvested.
CORCORAN: So half the tropical fish have gone from these reefs in three years?
CHRIS BARTLETT: Thats right and because it is such a small system its very easy to do that here.
CORCORAN: SRS dismisses the research, arguing quite literally that there are plenty of fish in the sea and that they move around so much it is impossible to count them.
LARRY DACLES: God gave these fish a brain to migrate to do what they want. I mean we cannot catch all these fish. These fish, you can say now here, tomorrow he was there, because they have fins. They can swim. God gave them the knowledge to go anywhere they want.
CORCORAN: The scientific findings are also disputed by the Fisheries Department.
Corcoran: and their preliminary results show that fish populations on the reefs fished by SRS have been depleted by up to 50%.
KALO PAKOA: That information is also very without base. I would say its not true.
CHRIS BARTLETT: I would say in Vanuatu now, especially if we are trying to get a dual use out of our reefs, such as tourism and the aquarium trade, in that respect it is very unsustainable. One of the two is going to have to go down and unfortunately the support of the Government right now is on the side of the marine aquarium trade.
CORCORAN: That Government support looks set to continue. As we filmed, SRS, the companys management, was changing hands. A new part owner announced plans to ramp up operations by bringing in a much larger vessel that will enable a team of ten divers to stay on the reefs for a week at a time.
CORCORAN: So its ten divers?
LARRY DACLES: Yes ten divers.
CORCORAN: And that won't
operate around here, that will be in another part of the country?
LARRY DACLES: No not in Efate, and the Government is protecting this place. We dont want to exploit it. We want to go to some other island.
Music
CORCORAN: Out on Nguna Island, marine biologist Chris Bartlett delights in playing Finding Nemo for the village children.
CHRIS BARTLETT: Oh they love watching Nemo. The village kids here dont really have an intimate contact with the reef. Its just not in their traditional nature to love the reef and to love fish and love animals and so that film really did show them the different side of the reef. I think it was very positive here in the village.
CORCORAN: Others watch the unchecked expansion of the aquarium trade with dismay, worried that one day the only tropical fish Vanuatus children will ever see will be on a video screen or in an aquarium.
JAMES ARMITAGE: As soon as Nemo came out operations started gearing up. Its really put the accelerator down on the aquarium industry.
CORCORAN: So who is going to save Nemo in Vanuatu?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Nemos dead!
Reporter: Mark Corcoran
Camera: Geoffrey Lye
Editor: Garth Thomas
Producer: Wayne Harley
Research: Shannon Jones
CORCORAN: Port Vila, the languid capital of Vanuatu, is a laid-back tourist paradise where the sea is a bountiful supplier of both food and income. In recent years, the Port has become better known as a raffish international tax haven and home to more than its fair share of corrupt politicians. Now, Vanuatu has tapped into a new money-spinner as the source of some of the best quality tropical aquarium fish in the world.
CORCORAN: Where are your main markets?LARRY DACLES: Australia and US.
Everybody want it because of this Nemo film. I can tell you it helps also with children, you know asking for Nemo.
CORCORAN: Every morning the divers prepare to set out from Port Vila to harvest reefs off the main island Efate.
They work for Sustainable Reef Supplies or SRS, part owned by one of the biggest players in the aquarium fish trade, the American based Segrest farms.
Centred on developing countries, this global industry is growing at a phenomenal rate. According to the United Nations, twenty million fish worth five hundred million dollars will be caught this year. Industry insiders say the real figure is double that. Western nations tightly regulate the trade but elsewhere these diving teams have earned the dubious nickname of reef wreckers.
Music
CORCORAN: In Indonesia and the Philippines they use cyanide to stun then catch fish with catastrophic results for the reefs. In Fiji divers break off tonnes of live coral to decorate fish tanks, but theres none of that here in Vanuatu. SRS boasts a policy of industry best practice, a sustainable and environmentally sensitive approach using only hand nets.
It is quite literally money for the taking and according to SRS manager Larry Dacles, everyone shares in the catch.
LARRY DACLES: The benefits we are bringing here, we employ Vanuatu people.
We are training them, the divers. We are paying the custom owner, the reef owner as I said, and we are paying the fisheries 2% of our sales every month.
CORCORAN: Demand is greatest for clown fish, even if the Vanuatu variety isnt exactly the same Nemo as seen in the movie.
CORCORAN: So this is Nemos cousin?
BOAT SKIPPER: Yeah clownfish like this, Nemos cousin.
Music
CORCORAN: Vanuatus tourism operators believe there are more lucrative ways of capitalising on the worlds growing fascination with Nemos cousins.
Music
MIKE CRAWFORD: We like to sell to kids or to young people Come and see Nemo do an introductory dive or discover scuba diving and come and see Nemo - so it has obviously got a big effect.
CORCORAN: Mike Crawford runs the dive shop on the Hideaway Island resort. Tourism is one of Vanuatus few viable industries. Take away the fish and he says you lose the tourists Hideaway Island is afforded some protection as a marine reserve but thats not the case on ten other reefs that SRS has been harvesting for the past three years.
MIKE CRAWFORD: I know of some areas where there is nowhere near the amount, probably 50% of the fish life as to what there was ten or fifteen years ago. I have seen when I first came here, lots more on a lot of these islands and Ive actually seen now that youve got to really look hard to find certain types of fish on some of the islands. And the numbers are nowhere near as many.
CORCORAN: At SRSs warehouse, Nemos cousin and the rest of the catch is unloaded and sorted. Catching tropical fish is still much cheaper than the extremely difficult task of breeding them in tanks.
Keeping them alive can be problematic. The yellowish colour of the tank water is caused by antibiotics and other drugs pumped in to heal injuries and reduce stress. In the Philippines, up to half of the fish caught using cyanide can die shortly after capture or go belly up soon after being sold to unsuspecting customers. Larry Dacles insists that SRSs dead on arrival or DOA rate is much lower.
LARRY DACLES: Here we ship one hundred fish and only one DOA so thats less than 1% because of quality and how we take care of fish.
CORCORAN: On the day of our tour we saw only one dead fish in the entire facility, but other visitors tell a very different story.MIKE CRAWFORD: Ive actually been down to the tanks and Ive seen them putting syringe needles into the fishes belly to relieve the air to prevent them from dying, but Ive also seen in the same tank probably twenty fish floating around dead.
Music
CORCORAN: Chief Mor Mor is one of ten traditional or custom leaders paid by SRS for the right to fish his reef.
His village recently played host to the American Television show Survivor but apart from that brief brush with reality TV, his people survive on what they catch at sea. The colourful but largely inedible tropical fish were ignored until SRS arrived.
CHIEF MOR MOR: We thought oh this is good so we ask them to come and we allow them to fish and we get some money from them to run the village and community.
CORCORAN: Chief Mor Mor initially asked for the equivalent of nine hundred U.S. dollars a month, but reluctantly agreed to be paid just ninety dollars when SRS threatened to go elsewhere.
CORCORAN: Do you think that is a fair price?
CHIEF MOR MOR: Well I accept that because I mean they dont fish every day. Maybe they come one time only for a month and then they never come. Maybe the price is not good but then at the end of every month we have something, whereas if we say no, maybe we have nothing.
JAMES ARMITAGE: Well put it this way, five Filipino divers on that one reef will collect five thousand Australian dollars worth of fish in one day. You know? Whos getting the short end of the stick? They should be getting a lot more money, yes thats right.
CORCORAN: James Armitage speaks with the knowledge of an insider. For a decade he ran a small business buying tropical fish from the villagers. In 2002 a group of American businessmen asked him to help establish SRS Vanuatu. He didnt like what he saw and quit last year.
JAMES ARMITAGE: Thats the Hideaway Island marine reserve sanctuary.
The divers used to go out there at night time and collect specific types of fish that you can collect much easier at night.
CORCORAN: But this is a marine reserve isnt it?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Yeah, thats right yeah.
CORCORAN: Collecting illegally but nobody really cares?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Yeah.
CORCORAN: James says SRS wanted an immediate tenfold increase in production and brought in Filipino divers to do the job.
JAMES ARMITAGE: I think its a little bit out of control. I think someone needs to control them and needs to get a good idea of what theyre actually doing.
CORCORAN: Is that happening now?
JAMES ARMITAGE: No. No, definitely not. Basically its a free for all.
CORCORAN: So how long has this boat been out of action for?
KALO PAKOA: This boat was sitting here for the last four years.
CORCORAN: Kalo Pakoa of the Vanuatu Fisheries Department argues that he lacks the resources to effectively monitor the aquarium trade.
KALO PAKOA: This is the main Fisheries Department workshop.
CORCORAN: Without the least sense of irony, Vanuatu has proclaimed 2004 to be the Year of Fisheries. There are eighty-three islands and two and a half thousand kilometres of coastline and yet none of Fisheries three vessels have put to sea for years.
CORCORAN: So this boat is in the water but how long has it been tied up for?
KALO PAKOA: For the last three years.
CORCORAN: Yeah?
KALO PAKOA: They do some repair and now it is just about to make its first trip to the islands.
CORCORAN: First time in three years?
KALO PAKOA: In three years, yes. Its a long time. The outboard motors are all faulty.
CORCORAN: And whats in the containers?
KALO PAKOA: These containers are stored with tools. Right now the tools are not, a lot of the tools have been missing. They are not of much use.
CORCORAN: Everything is gone, been stolen?
KALO PAKOA: Yes. Most have been stolen.
CORCORAN: For ten years Fisheries was funded by a European Union aid project, but was left high and dry when the scheme ended. Its an all too common tale in Pacific island nations.
KALO PAKOA: Its not my fault. Its not anyones fault. Its a situation of having a lot of assistance at once, they come in with a lump sum of resources, with technical expertise and then once the project ends, all the resources stop coming in.
CORCORAN: Back at SRS, business is booming. Nemos cousin is being bagged and tagged. Hes joining an airfreight consignment bound for Sydney with just enough oxygen and water to get him through the overnight ordeal.LARRY DACLES: This one is very in demand because they are very, very nice in tanks and Australia market and the US market like it very much.
CORCORAN: SRS pays Vanuatus Government just 2% of the declared wholesale price of every fish. For example, SRS prices each of these Flame Angels at nine dollars, yet theyll sell for sixty dollars so Vanuatu gets just eighteen cents for each sixty dollar fish.
Theres also something fishy about the exact numbers being exported. No one from the Fisheries Department bothers to show up and count the fish in each consignment. Those figures are provided by SRS. Officially seventy thousand fish were exported last year. The only problem is, the numbers dont add up.
CORCORAN: Seventy thousand?
KALO PAKOA: Yes.
CORCORAN: I spoke to Heidi Bartram, who was a marine biologist who worked here. She went through the files and counted last year and her estimate was that they exported at least a hundred and eighty thousand fish.
KALO PAKOA: That figure is over-estimated.
CORCORAN: And he also denies his own departments internal estimate that SRS exports will increase to a quarter of a million fish this year, up from just twenty thousand three years ago. Former SRS insider James Armitage says that while villagers and the State are exploited, plenty of money has gone into the pockets of Vanuatus politicians and bureaucrats.
JAMES ARMITAGE: Initially they came in and there was a lot of resistance. They were told that they couldnt, everything, all bets were off. They werent going to get a licence and things turned around and they managed to get their licence by some help of some influential people and theyve moved ahead ever since.
CORCORAN: How did they get that influence? What did they do?
JAMES ARMITAGE: They paid them.
CORCORAN: How much?
JAMES ARMITAGE: I wasnt privy to the inner circle at that stage and Im not sure exactly who was, where the money was ending up but it was thousands of dollars a week.
CORCORAN: And did you ever see money exchanging hands? Cheques?
JAMES ARMITAGE: I saw cheques going out the door yeah.
CORCORAN: For what amounts?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Thousands of dollars.
CORCORAN: A week?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Yeah. The actual fellow who came across here to set up SRS was blatant about it and was willing to offer it. His words were, Thats how we did it in Fiji. Thats how we did it in Indonesia. Well do it here.
CORCORAN: You havent heard stories about that?
KALO PAKOA: I have not idea. I havent heard any stories about that. Even the Fisheries Department was accused over being bribed by this company. This information were all false.
CORCORAN: Now who, who made that accusation?
KALO PAKOA: I dont know but its rumours that was brought up last year, which is all false information.
CORCORAN: Some communities have resisted the lure of SRS. On the island of Nguna the Magic Man declares a taboo, invoking the spirits to protect the fish of the local reef by planting a leaf for all to see. According to custom, those who defy the taboo risk sickness or death.
CHRIS BARTLETT: The Chiefs got together about three years ago, noticing that some of their primary resources
were declining such as trochus, giant clams, and some of the fish food resources and they wanted to put a stop to that.
CORCORAN: American marine biologist, Chris Bartlett, was invited here by the Chiefs of Nguna and the adjoining island of Pele to supervise the creation of Vanuatus only custom or traditional marine park. Initially set up to protect food fish, the taboo has now been extended to the aquarium trade. Tourists are welcome as long as they look but dont touch. Unless of course they want to lend a hand with the islands sea turtle tagging programme.
Music
Chris Bartlett spends much of his working day beneath the waves, tending to the islands extraordinary coral gardens, untouched by SRS. He fears that losing aquarium fish would lead to a drastic reduction in the numbers of eating fish, which are the islands main source of food.CHRIS BARTLETT: Now the aquarium fish, theyre the grazers of the reef. Theyre the lawnmowers, so be it, and they keep the algae down.
If that algae gets out of control, it could completely destroy the habitat, the reef habitat by overgrowing with algae. That will in turn affect the food fish that use the reef as a breeding site and just a living area.
Music
CORCORAN: Very little research has been conducted on the long term impact of the aquarium trade until now. Chris Bartlett has just finished working with a team of marine biologists from Queenslands James Cook University and the environmental group Reef Check. Their findings are disturbing. In just three years, SRS operations have halved tropical fish numbers.
CHRIS BARTLETT: The results are quite significant. We found that theres a 50% reduction in sites that have not been protected, that have been over harvested.
CORCORAN: So half the tropical fish have gone from these reefs in three years?
CHRIS BARTLETT: Thats right and because it is such a small system its very easy to do that here.
CORCORAN: SRS dismisses the research, arguing quite literally that there are plenty of fish in the sea and that they move around so much it is impossible to count them.
LARRY DACLES: God gave these fish a brain to migrate to do what they want. I mean we cannot catch all these fish. These fish, you can say now here, tomorrow he was there, because they have fins. They can swim. God gave them the knowledge to go anywhere they want.
CORCORAN: The scientific findings are also disputed by the Fisheries Department.
Corcoran: and their preliminary results show that fish populations on the reefs fished by SRS have been depleted by up to 50%.
KALO PAKOA: That information is also very without base. I would say its not true.
CHRIS BARTLETT: I would say in Vanuatu now, especially if we are trying to get a dual use out of our reefs, such as tourism and the aquarium trade, in that respect it is very unsustainable. One of the two is going to have to go down and unfortunately the support of the Government right now is on the side of the marine aquarium trade.
CORCORAN: That Government support looks set to continue. As we filmed, SRS, the companys management, was changing hands. A new part owner announced plans to ramp up operations by bringing in a much larger vessel that will enable a team of ten divers to stay on the reefs for a week at a time.
CORCORAN: So its ten divers?
LARRY DACLES: Yes ten divers.
CORCORAN: And that won't
operate around here, that will be in another part of the country?
LARRY DACLES: No not in Efate, and the Government is protecting this place. We dont want to exploit it. We want to go to some other island.
Music
CORCORAN: Out on Nguna Island, marine biologist Chris Bartlett delights in playing Finding Nemo for the village children.
CHRIS BARTLETT: Oh they love watching Nemo. The village kids here dont really have an intimate contact with the reef. Its just not in their traditional nature to love the reef and to love fish and love animals and so that film really did show them the different side of the reef. I think it was very positive here in the village.
CORCORAN: Others watch the unchecked expansion of the aquarium trade with dismay, worried that one day the only tropical fish Vanuatus children will ever see will be on a video screen or in an aquarium.
JAMES ARMITAGE: As soon as Nemo came out operations started gearing up. Its really put the accelerator down on the aquarium industry.
CORCORAN: So who is going to save Nemo in Vanuatu?
JAMES ARMITAGE: Nemos dead!
Reporter: Mark Corcoran
Camera: Geoffrey Lye
Editor: Garth Thomas
Producer: Wayne Harley
Research: Shannon Jones