The European Union Is Still Unable to Find Nemo and Dory-Time for a Reliable Traceability System for the Marine Aquarium Trade

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The EU is one of the main markets for marine ornamental species. Their entrance into the EU, as well as their circulation between member states, is supposed to be highly regulated. Surprisingly, it is currently impossible to answer simple questions, such as how many Nemos and Dorys are imported each year into the EU, or where do they come from? This lack of knowledge is difficult to understand, as all these organisms enter the EU by air-shipping and must be controlled at customs offices in international airports. This scenario favors “business as usual” and does not allow to verify the claims on sustainability commonly made by the marine aquarium industry. However, the EU already operates a platform that may allow to collect such information in a reliable way and shed light on this blurry industry, the Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES). This platform can start by surveying marine ornamental fishes, so the EU can finally know how many Nemos and Dorys are being imported and where they are sourced from. If this approach works, marine ornamental invertebrates can also be monitored, and reliable databases can finally be assembled to document the marine aquarium trade in the EU. ABSTRACT: The EU is one of the main importers of marine ornamental species sourced from tropical coral reefs around the world. While the entrance of live organisms into the EU, along with their intra-EU circulation, is framed within stringent control mechanisms, to date, no reliable figures exist concerning which marine ornamental species are imported, in what numbers, and where they are sourced from. This lack of reliable data in the EU on the trade of marine ornamental species is puzzling if one considers that all these imported specimens must be controlled at customs offices located in international airports. Such data deficiency favors the prevalence of blurry supply chains and a “business as usual” mindset that hampers any serious effort to promote sustainability in the marine aquarium industry. To safeguard the collection of findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) data, we suggest that the EU platform Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES) refines its surveillance on the trade of marine ornamental species. The detailed survey of marine ornamental fishes alone can be used as a proof of concept to validate the use of TRACES for this purpose and, if successful, it can later be expanded to all other taxonomic groups of marine ornamental species.