The Parosphromenus newsletter keeps it all together
We stay in touch with each other via our large email network and via the internet. Due to our wide-spread network, real meetings will only be possible on local or regional level; mostly they will be held in connection with a meeting of a cooperating association. Nevertheless the Parosphromenus Newsletter, available since 2005 (up to issue 72/2009 it was called ”Paro-Info”), is the most important means of communication. It is a service for the members. They receive the actual issue automatically after its release via our email distribution list.
The Parosphromenus Newsletter contains important information of all kinds like: notes on imports, news from the natural habitats of Parosphromenus, messages that we receive from other members, outstanding stock or breeding news. The newsletter is also the centre, from which we start our half-annually census, the overview about our licorice gourami aquarium stock. Of course afterwards the results will be published here, too. Communication itself will not automatically guarantee the conservation of our stock, but without its help, this would not work. A conservation project like ours, having a global perspective, has to rely on a well-linked communication between all parties.
Only twenty years , such a large communication structure was unthinkable. That is why all Parosphromenus enthusiasts had, until the turn of the millennium, no chance to develop an effective conservation strategy for these fish. All Parosphromenus populations that have been previously imported for the aquarium trade died out within a few years despite serious and quite successful breeding attempts. Only the internet enabled the contact between like-minded aquarists and helped to establish the coordination of supporters within reasonable efforts. Therefore, since the development of the Parosphromenus Project in 2005, we used exclusively email and internet as communication means and established the newsletter immediately. The use of conventional media would have overstrained our voluntary and self-organised community – this would be the case even today.
Becoming a member is equal to subscribing to the newsletter. Anyone who wants to read previous issues or would like to participate in a new survey has to click the button “Newsletter” in the header menu. Here one can access the newsletter archive as well as the actual survey form.
Update februar 2019
Since 2018 the Newsletter has changed format, so that it is now send out via MailChimp, from a mailing list. You can subscribe to the newsletter by following the link on this page, and you will then also be able to see the latest newsletter here.