PIJAC’s Aquatic Committee: Activities Protecting the Aquatics Community Since the October 2009 Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) petition to list 83 species of corals as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a group of aquatics industry leaders worked with PIJAC to identify the trade impact associated with a NOAA determination to list these species and to develop strategies to ensure a more favorable outcome. In 2011, several environmental organizations led by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) drafted a trade impacting federal Coral Reef bill for introduction by the late honorable Senator Daniel K. Inouye. PIJAC submitted a detailed analysis of the draft bill, which led to the Senator’s decision to not introduce the bill. Over the past few years, PIJAC critiqued and provided testimony on a large number of trade-banning bills introduced in the Hawaiian legislature, as well as responded to several proposed regulations governing Hawaii’s ornamental aquarium industry. More recently, PIJAC is dealing with ever increasing anti-trade rhetoric and activity from the animal rights and environmental activist communities. PIJAC is currently involved in a Court of Appeals case involving Hawaii’s aquarium collection permit system, the culmination of a lawsuit brought against the state of Hawaii by one such group. All of these activities have created a greater sense of urgency for the ornamental aquatics industry to organize to ensure the future of a healthy, viable and defensible industry and hobby. read more