jamiemtl wrote:
ok - so after searching through orchid digest and other forums it
appears that people in the Orchid Community think that anti-smuggling
laws are garbage. There has been a hidden undertone as to the
"political reasons" for the ban and trade or orchids. Any hint as to
what these are??


Orchid Fever will have more detail on this, but wayyyy back in the 1970s
when the CITES treaty was being written it was originally written for
trade in endangered animals. As a last minute item someone asked "what
about plants?" and forgot that many plants (including orcids) are very
fast growing and easy to produce from seed. Unlike animals, who only
produce few young which are very slow growing by comparision. (Like
elephants, pandas or tigers)

What is ridiculous - where orchids are concerned - is that orchids can
be replicated by the thousands in tissue culture labs. Or seed pods
produce 100,000 of seed, so an endangered plant could very easily be
brought to market merely by collecting one seed pod, which may or may
not damage the environment. Market forces would keep the prices low
because many plants would be available to sell. Instaead, the law
forbids you to collect any part of an endangered species. Rarity forces
the prices sky high. Illegal trade abounds. How are you going to tell
someone in Papua New Guinea not to collect that rare orchid and sell it
for more money than they'd earn in a year?

Additionally, orchids in the way of highway projects, or in areas soon
to be flooded by dams you are forbidden to collect and save the orchids
in those areas unless you have the appropriate permits. Therefore what
was an attempt to save endangered species wound up killing them by the
thousands of individual plants.

Read Orchid Fever.

K