New plant blacklist

Thought you would like the SAPTA reference ... glad to see it is taking shape, was surprised to see all the wholesalers and importers on the minutes. Self regulation is a double edged sword ... but in time it can work - even improve our hobby.

Later Ferdie

 

Eish no professional association should sanction any training unless it is NQF aligned or an international industry certification, irrelevant who the trainer is. Failing this it is a tea and cookies session at best.

 

Double edged sword indeed - I've raised my concerns with the chairman about the issue of the person giving talk not being impartial and they will keep an eye on it. The moment any reference is made to the product range the guy imports during the talk or afterwords the whole thing will be stopped.

SAPTA has to remain impartial and have the ENTIRE hobby's interest at heart and I believe they have succeeded thus far. We need to get more shops and wholesalers signed up with SAPTA to give the organization even more clout.

 

Oh by no way am I pleading ignorance f-fish, pleading ignorance would imply that I knew about the blacklist but choose to ignore it so that I could bend the rules/law for my own needs. How people learn is a definable body of knowledge, which can be taught to people as soon as they are able to learn and understand. The position of government system seems to have made remediation a main focus of its time, energy, and finances and avoided correcting the causes that result in the need for remediation. In layman's terms instead of having to deal with an invasive species destroying our fragile ecosystem, rather educate people on the dangers of blacklisted species, because most peoples intentions are good. I have found that most people are blinded to the connection between awareness and education. How are people supposed to know about the blacklist when they are not being made aware of it. It is a sink or swim mentality or in this case go Google it mentality.

I would have loved something like the above mentioned, but after visiting this forum I was shocked at some of the bad advice I was getting from LPS who where supposed to give you the proper advice the first time around. If I did not find this forum I would have had dead fish on my hands....

If you are referring too the statistics I mentioned it is true: Africa Internet Usage, Facebook and Population Statistics

Africa makes up a total of just 7% of the total world internet usage while the rest of the world is almost at 93%. And considering that we are one of the biggest contents out there it is pretty shocking.

You also might want to read this:

Read more: http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com..._content&view=article&id=101:so#ixzz2HjTFr5xu

You know what would have been great if they got the media involved in the process so they can report on it get it publicized in the local print media.

 

No. SAPTA is an organization which was put in place to protect and regulate the Pet Trade. The public has no involvement with SAPTA.

 

Hi Infected,

I find your post here alarming. In this fragile world that we live in it is every person's responsibility to find out what goes on around them in order to find out whether in the long term they are going to survive. The attitude generally is, well the water is running out of the tap and I pay for it so this is ok, or my electricity still works so this is ok. How many people, not only in SA, actually inform themselves about the environment which sustains them? We live in a society where most people are completely oblivious and ignorant of this, as long as it works, if it does not, that is when we start getting worried and react with all sorts of claims of who is responsible and why was I not informed and the general public should be informed by government. If you want to know what is going on in the world in which you live in, then you need to get informed and find out yourself. I mean, do you know if there is a mine that is going to be opened right next to your property? If you don’t inform yourself, you won’t know and the mine will start whether you like it or not.

This statement above in which you have highlight this part, and I quote “The position of government system seems to have made remediation a main focus of its time, energy, and finances and avoided correcting the causes that result in the need for remediation.†is just plain wrong in my opinion, and please don’t misunderstand me, I am not trying to put in a word in support of government, I also realize that there are many things that are not being dealt with in the way they should.

You should realize what has happened in the past with regard to invasive plants. During colonial times an attitude prevailed in South Africa and this ran up to the late nineteen sixties, which was that anything that came from Europe was better, and that everywhere else in the world needed improvement because what was there in nature was useless and could not be utilized. Plants were imported into SA from Europe and Australia, fishes into our rivers, fortunately not too many mammals and other animals, but they have caused major upsets to our ecology. Port Jackson willows in the Western Cape, black wattles all over South Africa and Africa for that matter, pine trees, blue gums, grasses that you don’t even know of and the list is endless. There were active campaigns and millions of pounds were spent on this. Australia and New Zealand suffered far more than we did, and they now have an extremely strict policy for importation of any animals and plants.

Since about 1990, it was realized in South African Nature Conservation and Forestry circles that unless something was done, we would soon have had very little of our own vegetation remaining and importantly, these plants would use up all our water. This resulted in the “Working for Water†project which was run with the objective of clearing aliens, but also to create jobs for people. This resulted in the clearing of aliens from literally thousands of hectares. In parallel a massive information campaign was run for landowners and landowners in general in SA now know about alien plants and their dangers, about that there is no doubt. However, you seen to be unaware of this?

In such a process, you can use the approach that the government will do the clearing, or you can use the stick and legislate forcing landowners to clear their aliens at their own cost. The second option is of course unpopular, but it is on its way. To put such legislation in place is also complicated, but it is getting there and although you once again don’t seem to be informed the National Environmental Management Act (NEMBA) was passed by government in 2009. To implement this regulations have to be drawn up which means that the details of which species are to be defined as invasive and other finer details need to be sorted out, but this process in happening, again I don’t think you know this.

The Aquatic plants list, and it should not be called a “blacklist†is the first and easiest part of this process. “Only†485 species were evaluated. For the evaluation of ornamental plants, the list runs into thousands. Each species has to be assessed for invasiveness and this is no small task. At the moment scientists in the Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries as well as SANBI, South African National Biodiversity Institute, are working on this. This requires highly specialized persons of which we have too few in SA. As with all of these processes in the new democratic SA, there has to be consultation which I whole heartedly welcome, but this delays matters.

Finally, who is to blame for this here? It is definitely not the present government. It is the result of ignorant and arrogant European governments and settlers who thought they knew it all. Australia had an active campaign of importation of foreign species, for example they actively imported and multiplied rabbits for release, now they spend millions on control, and for your information if you walk around forests in Australia, you do not see a single young tree. Why? Because the rabbits eat all the seedlings so this is causing HUGE ecological damage there. Do we want the same here, certainly not and there IS publicity and education going on. Did you learn about aliens at school as part of your biology curriculum? Depending on how old you are, and if you went to school pre mid 1980’s you most probably did not, but it is now a firm part of even elementary biology training at school. Did you know this?

It appears to me that you have not informed yourself about what is going on around you, and you need to do a little homework, just as many others need to do, and stop trying to find reasons in what the government is doing or not doing, there is a lot happening that you do not seem to know about.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

And maybe that is the problem then, if you can get the public/media just to sit in these sessions ie no involvement just hear what is being said and done then people can see what happens behind the scenes and understand how the inner-workings of the system works and by doing so gain a understanding of the system.

 

Dear Dirk not everyone is born with the silver-spoon of education in the mouth, or they simply do not have the resources available too them to find out about these issues. It is understandable that you as a professor would know of such issues due to your years of experience in the field, but unfortunately the average fishkeeper starting out in the hobby is not as well informed as you are. And what seems to be compounding this problem is the local LFS lack of knowledge on the subject, and add on top of this the governments inability too police these policies so that the general pubic out there don't get the short end of the stick given to them by LFS that should know better. So everyone carries part of the blame here. If you do not educate some from a young age not too litter or pollute and what would happen if they do not stop they will continue to do so and thing it is okay to do so until they are shown the consequences of their actions, and re-educated.

If I understand your reasoning you want to leave people to their own devices and find out by themselves about the blacklist, by the same reasoning then we should not need any type of eduction or information campaigns regarding any type of issues then. We throw them in the deep end and scream sink or swim, those who make it makes it those who don't well too bad for them.

 

Hi Infected,

Everytime something is mentioned to you you don't actually reply, you move on to the next issue and set of accusations. Everytime there is also this, well "I am innocent".

Firstly, let us get back to the issues, there is something being done about this by government, and secondly, school education is addressing the issue of education. Stop the resources issue, every school kid is being taught regardless of resources. What also happens is that they are taught about littering and pollution, it is being taught. You are now on this forum and you are being informed about the issues re importation of aquatic plants.

The LFS issue is exactly what Sean was explaining, and that is why SAPTA is starting an educational program. Instead of hammering them, urge your LFS owner to join SAPTA and urge him to get SAPTA to hold a meeting somewhere on the Garden Route, do something don't just be negative.

I repeat again, innocence is not something that you can hide behind, if you want to trade in any living organism, fish, plants, snakes, tarantulas, etc etc, you as an individual and the LFS owner are going to have to get his house in order, inform themselves about regulations, or else you will not be able to keep or trade in these items, it is quite simple. By the way, you will be surprised how much the LFS owners do know, they just love throwing the innocence argument, and it will not be accepted any longer in future.

There is no one throwing you in at the deep end and asking you to swim, many persons have informed themselves about this matter. If they want to import plants, they need to find out what the regulations are. This does not need to be advertised and educated, otherwise we would just be being educated about legal processes all day.

Kind regards,

Dirk