Nick,

Your further though did address some of the issues I brought up in my reply
from 10:57 (we were working on replies simultaneously =). Again, good idea,
but the mechanisms to train people to recognize orchids in bloom will never
happen. Remember, port of entry inspectors inspect about a billion more
things than orchids, and hiring orchid specialists will never happen.

The US "fruit of the poison tree" interpretation of CITES is a big hindrance
to ex-situ conservation. Banning seedlings to prove an ethical point is
silly and we're the only country that does it, to my knowledge. It goes back
to CITES being developed for slow-to-reproduce animals and with plants being
tacked on as an afterthought.

Specific countries have laws that also make ex-situ conservation impossible.
These are probably not CITES related. I want to say it's illegal to rescue
orchids in deforestation zones in Mexico as an example. Peru also comes to
mind as having policies in this area that make it hard to save orchids from
slash and burn areas.

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

wrote in message
oups.com...
Eric Hunt wrote:
Nick,

Interesting points - but the one thing that kept popping up in my head:

Do *YOU* want the same "take-no-prisoners war-on-drugs" federal
enforcement
officers knocking down your doors and trashing your greenhouse because
someone "reported" you as having some of these banned plants you are
advocating?

One further thought... One could, I think, beef up CITES enforcement
without ever going anywhere near private greenhouses. A lot of
smuggling is probably Norris-style false labeling. Suppose only plants
in bloom were allowed to be shipped internationally and inspections at
ports of entry were beefed up? That would make it much more difficult
to import plants and would suck for people who make their living that
way, but it would also make it much more difficult to smuggle wild
plants.

But, my main purpose in commenting in this thread is not to suggest
specific enforcement methods. Rather, I wanted to comment on the idea
that CITES has been an unmitigated disaster for slipper orchids. I
think that to the extent that CITES has restricted international trade,
it has encouraged domestic flasking. Where smuggling wild plants still
exists, it will not be hindered by weakening CITES. CITES regulation
does not seriously hinder our ability to grow orchids. You could stop
all international trade tomorrow, and places like Fox Valley could
still produce most species in the genera Paphiopedilum and
Phragmipedium. CITES only really affects our ability to obtain a small
handfull of new species, and the amount of moaning by orchidists is
seriously out of proportion to its affect on us..

Nick