Reka wrote:
In article ,
says...
You might also want to talk with folks that have done seed smuggling
for seed banks.
I thought seeds were exempt from CITES, or are you just talking about
general smuggling of plant material into the States?
NO, CITES specifically includes "any part thereof", and in fact this is
the single most damning part of the whole thing. The failure to exclude
plants from this clause written for animals (which usually have to be
killed to obtain 'any part thereof') creates a pact which achieves the
reverse of it's supposed purpose, conservation (yes, it's a trade
treaty, but the purpose was in fact conservation). With plants, if you
exempt the parts, that is, seeds, seed capsules, and pollen, you are
able to artificially propagate them and thereby reduce the pressure on
collection of species in habitat. By failing to exclude them from this
clause, a situation has been created wherein the habitats are stripped
by collecting (yes, be it illegal or not) and many plants are so
'protected' they are 'imprisoned' in habitat as roads, farms, and
airstrips are built over them.
As to the the Kovachii episode, throw out everything you were thinking
about law, smuggling, and CITES. It was a case of personalities and
pride. No institution such as Selby had ever been expected to be
responsible for the actions of collectors. Their job is to classify,
which is a scientific endeavor of benefit to all humanity. It creates a
dampening effect on science in any area when they are also expoected to
be policemen. The peruvian authorities and those in the US were alerted
and prodded into action by someone else working on describing the plant
who was outdone by the earlier publishing of the name kovachii. Their
plan had been to be name it 'peruvianum', which is where the peruvian
authorities got their dander up, Until then they were perfectly happy to
let the plants just be farmed over (which is what ended up happening
anyway).
Michael Kovach did in fact have a legal arrangement to import plants as
that was his business. His contention that as the plant had not been
identified it could not technically be subject to CITES as an appendix 1
plant is not entirely without merit (if you'll speak to lawyers or
people who write such treaties they will tell you it's all about
technicalities). And in fact he was charged with the importation of only
one plant, for identification purposes at Selby. No one had ever been
subject to any kind of penalty before for moving one specimen for
identification.
Orchid Fever has it right. It's all about the people involved.