You might also find the following book a worthwhile read:
Orchid Fever : A Horticultural Tale of Love, Lust, and Lunacy
by Eric Hansen
Not all of the book is about orchid smuggling, but some of it is. In
general, this is a book about how crazy people can get over orchids. One of
the stories on orchid smuggling mentioned in this book talks of a case where
some orchid grower in Europe (Britain I think) reported another orchid
grower (his competitor?) to law enforcement for owning illegally smuggled
orchids. The law enforcement officials raided the guy's greenhouse,
confiscated the orchids, and then gave them to the informant to take care of
(since he knew how to take care of orchids, and the officials did not have
another greenhouse etc. available)!
--------
Another part of the issue you may be interested in is that one way for
orchid species that are illegal in the U.S. to become legally available is
that plants that are confiscated from someone who smuggled them in (and thus
illegal ones) are then propagated and the divisions or seedlings of those
orchids are then legal in the U.S.. An example of that is legally available
paph vietnamense in the U.S., which are then provided with paperwork that
can trace them legally to plants that were confiscated.
Joanna
"J Fortuna" wrote in message
news:_%Aef.16668$rO4.1099@trnddc05...
Since you are in Canada, this might be of interest:
http://www.bedfordorchids.com/cfia.htm
It is an article posted by the Canadian orchid vendor Bedford Orchids
describing the beaurocratic incompetence of Toronto officials dealing with
orchids legally imported into Canada after the World Orchid Conference
that
took place in Dijon, France in March 2005. While not precisely on illegal
orchid smuggling, this article is related in that it shows some of the
beaurocracy that can be in place to try to legally control orchid imports.
The article ends on the intriguing statement "I have now found out that
every single orchid plant declared in Toronto was detained. Every plant
smuggled in was not found. Is Judy Smith and her petty officious nature
CFIA
's new incentive to smuggle?" I assume that the author is just assuming
that
someone did smuggle in some orchids (?). Of course, the article is written
from one point of view, and you might want to double-check the facts if
you
can find other articles on this matter -- vendors who are interested in
imported orchids are not very objective observers of CITES enforcement
officials. :-)
In general you will probably find a lot of bias on this subject, and it
may
be difficult to sort out who is guilty/innocent, right/wrong,
just-enforcing-laws/obstructing-imports. I do not know whether Mr. Norris
for example was really guilty or innocent, what I do know is that a lot of
the posts to orchid groups on this subject were written by people who
sympathized with him -- was it because he was innocent? was it because
they
were his friends? was it because they in general think that CITES laws are
unreasonable (a lot of people who are into orchids believe that these laws
are quite stupid to begin with and then enforced incorrectly by officials
who do not know enough about orchids)? I do not know, but if I were
researching this subject, I would be very careful to double-check the
sources, and keep in mind that the authors of any info I read may be
biased -- this of course would apply to both sides, since those who
ardently
claimed that Mr. Norris was guilty may well have been his competitors or
people with a grudge or people who are strong supporters of CITES
regulations and wanted a conviction as a deterrent to orchid smuggling
(?).
As I said, I do not know the truth in the matter, but I know that many
people in the orchid communities feel very strongly about it.
Joanna
wrote in message
oups.com...
Hey All!
Workinng on a Case Study of Illegal Orchid Smugglings for a school
project. Anyone have any first hand experiences with this? I would be
interested to hear anyones experiences in dealing with underground
Orchids. Confidentiality is assured. Would be up for either email
correspondence and/or a quick telephone chat.
I'm in Canada - but you could be wherever!
Drop me a line at fergusonwoods AT hotmail DOT com if you're
interested!
Thanks!