Lapus Lapus Island, an easy dive for beginners, has variegated soft corals, spiny lionfish and rainbow-coloured nudibranches (molluscs).

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Sadly, there are too many lionfish about, and the bounties have proved too expensive to sustain.

ECONOMIST: A heartening tale of business and the environment

Efforts to rein in the lionfish seem to be the only initiative generating much interest beyond the local level.

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In the lionfish's native waters, the western Pacific Ocean, the local ecosystem has adjusted to such predatory behaviour.

ECONOMIST: A heartening tale of business and the environment

In the Caribbean, though, the lionfish is a novelty and a destructive one.

ECONOMIST: A heartening tale of business and the environment

That got him wondering if consumer demand might be a force powerful enough to halt even an invasive species as successful as the lionfish.

ECONOMIST: A heartening tale of business and the environment

But there may be an answer: prove that the lionfish is not in fact a top predator after all, by getting people to eat it.

ECONOMIST: A heartening tale of business and the environment

Just an hour from Khasab are dive sites with schools of blue and yellow Indian Ocean angelfish, Arabian butterfly fish, snappers, lionfish, groupers, stingrays and turtles.

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Anything that damages the biodiversity of the reefs in diving resorts is bad for tourism, so in some countries, such as Mexico and Belize, people have tried introducing bounties payable to divers who catch lionfish.

ECONOMIST: A heartening tale of business and the environment