reef shops with CITIES

[andysho]

Some of the shops corals are pretty expensive

was told that because they carry a cert call CITIES

care to share your view?

[terryansimon]

probably a certificiation for selling corals? or something? or maybe its just a cert to make them look impressive. *just kidding! don't want some LFS fellow to breath down my neck (=*

why don't you ask the shop owner? (=

[ah^siao]

cites is a cert that shows that the corals are scientificly proven.. they need this cert so that they can sell the corals without being caught by AVA.. any LFS selling hard corals without the cities and got caught will be fined 5000( per piece of coral)(i think cannot rmb the exact figures) or jain up to 3 months

[robe]

CITES is an organization that monitors the trade of endangered animals and tridacna clams and certain species of hard corals (acroporas) are included in the watchlist.

That means shipping and trading acropora corals without a CITES certificate is considered illegal and the violator is subject to fines and penalties as well as confiscation of the items.

It is not true for LFS to claim that having CITES cleared stocks is the cause of the high prices unless the quantity shipped is extremely small. In any case a CITES cert costs USD100 and if a reasonable quantity is shipped in, it should not result in a drastic increase in price.

[pospeh]

With regards to costs of CITES certified corals, you must also consider the costs from the exporters.

To get a proper CITES clearance, you need certificates from both the exporting country (i.e, Fiji gov't) and the importing country (Singapore gov't).

The importing costs of CITES cleared corals are more expensive than non-CITES cleared corals. This is due partly to the licensing expenses that the exporter incur, plus a number of other reasons.

So the importer here in Singapore incurs higher costs to bring in CITES costs, on top of his own licensing fees. And he passes on the added costs to you.