I already hear Jim Lewis emphatically nodding his head!
Craig Cowing
-----------------------

Emphatic nod. ;-)


Perhaps, but the difference between a couple of mountains in a
country the
size of California and a nation whose geography is many times
the size of
Japan is significant. Certainly this is a matter of geographic
volume only,
but I'd not be so rash as to suggest any significantly relevant
parallels as
yet.

Andy Rutledge

I've yet to download and read the article, but I have to point
out that the Japanese mountains were/are much more lush and green
than our western mountains. Ecologically speaking, they are much
more likely to allow a ground cover (of whatever) to re-vegetate
than the arid American west -- which is where the most
collectible (from the current bonsai fad standpoint) North
American trees grow and are taken.

A tree removed from a pocket of soil in the Rocky Mountains will
never be replaced in our lifetime and in the lifetimes of several
successive generations. Soil would/could be regenerated several
orders of magnitude more rapidly in the cold-humid Japanese alps
than in the cold-arid western North American mountains. Basic
environmental geography and soil science.

Collectors of one ilk or another have extirpated species after
species of plants and animals in many areas of the USA --
malacologists have caused the extinction or near extinction of
perhaps a half dozen species of tree snail in southern Florida
and orchids and bromeliad species are suffering wherever they can
(or could) be found. Saguaro cactus and several species of
barrel cactus in the Desert Southwest are disappearing at an
alarming rate from lands that are not under federal or state
protection. Many reptile species are in severe danger of
extirpation because of collectors.

I do recall someone nattering loudly at me some time ago when I
noted that collectible trees were gone in Japan thanks to the
bonsai "industry." Prolly, some of the same folks over here who
collect and seem to even make a living out of it who are claiming
that it would/could never happen here.

But, enough. People who don't want to know won't listen . . .

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - More details
in "The Ethics of Collecting" in our website's Knowledge Base.

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