Too Precious to Wear is a campaign created by SeaWeb, a communications-based nonprofit organization, to empower consumers and industry professionals to create a demand for coral conservation. Too Precious to Wear aims to:
Reduce threats to corals by:
* Recruiting influential fashion and design leaders to be leading voices for coral conservation
* Raising awareness of products that celebrate the ocean without harming it, by highlighting real coral alternatives
Corallium, also called red and pink coral, is extremely vulnerable to pressure from overfishing. Commercial harvest to satisfy international trade has reduced Corallium colony densities, shifted size structure to small, immature colonies that are worthless to the Corallium trade, and lowered reproductive output. Trade has also decreased the genetic diversity within and among populations. Despite the vulnerability of and the global market pressure on Corallium, there are no binding international instruments for ensuring its sustainable trade.
Seven Corallium species are traded worldwide as jewelry and other decorative products. Of all the deep-sea species, the Corallium trade is the largest in volume, estimated at 30 to 50 metric tons harvested per year. 26 million pieces were imported by the United States from 2001 to 2006.
Black coral is another valuable deep-sea coral species that is traded commercially as a jewelry and decoration item. However, the size of the black coral trade is approximately five metric tons, with 500,000 pieces per year imported by the United States, or less than 17 percent of the size of the red coral trade. The CITES Appendix II listing for black coral has improved the ability to monitor trade and helped countries strengthen their management of the species.
All stony corals are listed on Appendix II of CITES. Stony corals are sold for home decoration, tourist mementos, and aquariums.
Corallium, known as red and pink coral, is the most valuable and most widely traded deep-sea coral species. Since 2005 there has been a worldwide resurgence in coral popularity as evidenced by large attention in the media and on fashion runways. Corallium is particularly popular in Europe and Asia as jewelry and art. The United States is the largest documented importer of Corallium products—more than 26 mil¬lion pieces from 2001 to 2006. The rarity of these precious corals contributes to their coveted status. Raw coral commands an auction price ranging from US $150 to $900 per kilogram. Individual pieces of finished jewelry and art can range from US $20 to $20,000.
However, the reality undersea is far from pretty. Corallium has been marked by boom and bust cycles of discovery and overfishing that floods the global marketplace to rapid exhaustion of the resource. Corallium is mostly fished in the Mediterranean Sea and western Pacific Ocean, which combined for a harvest of 50 metric tons in 2004, down 89% from the fisheries’ peak of 445 metric tons in 1984.
Commercial harvest to satisfy international trade demands for Corallium has reduced colony densities, shifted size and age structure to small, immature colonies that are worthless to the Corallium trade, and lowered reproductive output. Trade has also decreased the genetic diversity within and among populations. In the Pacific, the destructive fishing method of bottom trawling for Corallium is the marine equivalent of clear cutting old-growth forests.
Despite the vulnerability of, and the global market pressure on, Corallium, there are no binding
Trawls can wipe out entire populations of Corallium colonies, which never fully recover because of very slow growth rates(less than one centimeter per year) and late reproductive maturity (upto12 years).
Despite the fashion trend, the U.S. government has proposed Corallium for a CITES Appendix II listing. Jewelers concerned about overfishing, such as Tiffany & Co., have removed red coral from their counters.
EyeOnJewels is collaborating with the Too Precious to Wear campaign to educate consumers and industry leaders on the many ways to protect corals. For more information, please go to Too Precious To Wear
Other organizations:
Conservation International
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