A Ton of Indo Live Rock Seized in UK Airport

The Manchester Evening News reported this week that authorities seized over a ton of 'live rock coral' which had come from Indonesia. Live rock 'coral' you say? Exactly. Confusion appears to have played a part in this seizure and it bubbles up through the news article where it states the consignment contained 'scores of rare corals' yet the picture as shown below was of live rock.


Live Coral or Just Live Rock? Credit: Manchester Evening News

Regardless, live rock is protected by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Individual CITES export permit and EU CITES import permits are required for live rock (Prop 13.36 ) and it appears that the importer did not have documentation.

Live Rock VS. Coral Rock

It is worth noting that CITES considers 'coral rock' as fossils and does not require permits. 'Coral rock' is defined as "greater than 3 cm in diameter, formed of fragments of dead coral and which may also contain cemented sand, coralline algae and other sedimentary rocks."

‘Live rock’ is "the term given to pieces of coral rock to which are attached live specimens of invertebrate species and coralline algae not included in the CITES Appendices and which are transported moist, but not in water."

So what do we have in Manchester? What is 'live rock coral?' It is hard to say. It appears to be just live rock and the Blue Planet Aquarium is the lucky recipient until this whole thing gets sorted out.

Indonesian Live Rock

The 1 ton number seemed like a lot of rock, but I dug around CITES and found the live rock export quota for Indonesia in 2009 - it was 450,000 kgs (over 496 tons)!

That's a lot of rock.


Source:
A tonne of live coral seized at airport - News - Manchester Evening News

Numbers and some quotes from:
Welcome to CITES

 

interesting article Matt

I think we should go over to our on the spot reporter Phoenix Heights for an update later


Steve

 

496 tons a year - wow, those reefs wont last long

 

Good idea.

 

wow, that is alot of rock, i wonder how long it takes nature to make that much? now i feel guilty for having live rock

 

I was thinking the same thing.

However I don't know enough about how live rock is harvested to know if it is sustainable. Hopefully someone here can chime in.

 

Attached are the CITES export quotas for 2009. Indo Live rock is on page 20.
Please let me know if I am reading this wrong, but I believe the number is 450,000 kgs.

 

This is the main reason my I buy aguacultred rock is a little better for the ecosystem


For the most part the lr is harvested from the outer side of the reef this rock has very little coral growing on in but the thing is if you take to much lr from the reef it will top the reef from growing

 

You can't believe anything the sellers/stores tell you though. How are you to know for sure that its aquacultered. Or if a fish is tank raised or this or that. It's all a gamble. Heck, the person you buy it from only knows what they were told anyway.

 

well thats true but if this isnt agricultured from of the florida coast its a real good fake lol its not bulky and stony like the local lr but it has all the local algeas and organisum that i see on the reefs when i dive/snorkel and i only paid 4 bucks a pound and this is the pest lr I have ever seen it has so much food on it that my tang is fat like a pig and it has so much coraline that it looks like the rock was in a reef thank for about 4 years lol

and this lfs guy is very onest