ABSTRACT
The live aquarium-fish trade which involves the capture of ornamental fish from the coral reef is problematic because of the destructive processes used. This chapter focuses on efforts in one Indonesian community (Les) to solve this problem. The global trade in these fish, which started in the Philippines in the 1960s, involves exports mainly from South East Asia to North America and Europe. Use of cyanide in ornamental fishing inflicts damage on corals at a time when coral reef ecosystems are also coming under many other kinds of environmental pressures (Hughes et al., 2010). Destructive environmental change, including over-exploitation of certain reef fish populations, can result in undesirable ecosystem transformation in the entire coral reef ecosystem (McClanahan et al., 2011; Fujita et al., 2014).
