Marine ecological footprint of the live reef fish food trade

The demand for live seafood in Asia has spawned a lucrative trade in live coral reef fish that in 1995 had a global annual retail value of over USD 1 billion (Johannes and Riepen 1995; Cesar et al. 1997). There are concerns that the live reef fish food trade is inflicting an unacceptably heavy impact on coral reefs and reef resources in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific.5 These areas contain over 90 per cent of the world’s coral species and include the highest global marine biodiversity (Norse 1993). Because these reefs provide over one billion people in Asia with food (Barber and Pratt 1997; Bryant et al. 1998), their destruction and overexploitation threaten current and future regional food security and socioeconomic development (Barber and Pratt 1997; Williams 1997).6 This article examines the marine ecosystem area appropriated by major Asian economies, particularly that of Hong Kong, to satisfy their demand for live reef fish food products. Hong Kong was chosen as the focus of the article for two reasons. First, it is the largest trader and major consumer of live reef food fish in the world. Second, in contrast to other demand-side economies (e.g. Singapore, mainland China), data are available to examine Hong Kong’s role in the trade, facilitating an in-depth analysis of its marine ecological footprint. However, even the available data for Hong Kong are known to be incomplete, making it difficult to determine the true scale of live fish imports into Hong Kong (Lau and ParryJones 1999).