Don't even get started, The asian market is going down the down the drain
faster than tijuana water through a tourist.  The Asian markets are down
some 75% for the year and above that their currency is being devalued like
never seen before.  In my opinion, southeast asia is just waiting for both
an ecological and econimical disaster
 
 
-Tim
 
 
At 02:25 PM 1/13/98 -0400, you wrote:
>At the risk of cluttering  up the list with too many of my thoughts, i
>will dive headfirst into the lively ethics debate once more, while
>ignoring  tales of 2 1/2 foot beached gloriamaris critters.
>
>The situation in the Phillipines has disturbed me for years.  If ever
>there was an entire country headed for ecological collapse, this is the
>best candidate, from what i keep hearing. The government seems to have,
>if my sources are anywhere near accurate, neither the resources nor the
>will to slow the accelerating  pace of environmental mayhem caused by a
>deadly combination of poverty, swift population growth, and greed in all
>its ugly manifestations.  In defense of  semi-scientific collecting
>activities, however, i would put forth the reality that 99%++ of the
>damage afflicted upon this wonderful repository of biodiversity, is the
>result of large-scale or simplywidespread plundering  (The
>often-rehearsed euphemism "harvesting", which  we  hide much ecological
>rape under, does not apply in most cases there (if what i have been
>hearing is accurate, ie!!)) of   theoretically renewable resources by
>detructive and/or uncontrolled methods:  dynamiting  coral ecosystems
>for fish, using cyanide to stun tropical fish, wholesale harvesting of
>corals, reckless clearcutting of huge tracts of forest ( a shameful
>practice Canada is still afflicted with, i must report) , and of course
>the gathering  of  amazingly large amounts of shells for "ornamental"
>purposes  (so as to avoid offending a lot of people, i will keep my
>opinions regarding the use of  once-living , live-collected organisms'
>remains for paper-weights, door-stops and bric-a-brac to myself) : the
>"commercial" shell trade.   Despite the fact that  a surprisingly large
>number of  "specimen shells" come from this country (in which over
>20,000 molluscan spp have been found!) , the absolute ammount of
>environmental destruction involved in their capture represents such a
>minute fraction of the total damage, and more importantly, the
>*long-term and irreversable* destruction occuring  there, that i would
>venture to say it is worth
>
>