Oh, wonderful CITES!
 

Slipper orchids face danger of extinction in Viet Nam
01/11/2006 -- 17:27(GMT+7)
http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp...ID=31&NEWS_ID=
182289

Ha Noi, Jan. 11 (VNA) - Vietnamese slipper orchids are facing the danger
of extinction due to over-exploitation and have been listed as endangered
species, said ecologist Phan Ke Loc from the Viet Nam Science and
Technology Institute.

Viet Nam has 20 species of slipper orchids, many of which are diminishing.

Recently, scientists have identified three globally threatened species of
slipper orchids, scientifically named Paphiopedilum spp. in the Phong Nha-
Ke Bang National Park in central Quang Binh province.

The Paphiopedilum species, which has been listed in the World Conservation
Union?s Red List of threatened species, are found in primitive forests at
an altitude of 1,000 m above sea level.

The slipper orchids were first found in central coastal Khanh Hoa province
in 1922 but they populations were quickly decimated by over-exploitation.
They were discovered again in 1996 in Khanh Hoa province and northern
mountainous Cao Bang province. Since then, they have been exploited to
near extinction.

--
Reka

This is LIFE! It's not a rehearsal. Don't miss it!
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html

Oh, wonderful CITES!
 

But heaven help someone who tries to harvest a few to save the species! Just
let the poachers take them; that's the natural order of things, after all.
(Insert sarcasm emoticon here.)

Diana

Oh, wonderful CITES!
 

So they wouldn't be threatened in their native habitat if more collecting
were allowed? It's acceptable to strip all of the plants out of their
habitat as long as they are freely available to the horticultural trade? I
don't see any problem with giving countries the right to control their
natural resources (although the application of CITES to preserved flowers
and herbarium specimens is going a little far.) CITES regulates the
shipment of orchids, it's not a ban. If the originating country allows the
species to be sold then they can be shipped with the appropriate documents.
If the country doesn't allow them to be sold, there are about 20,000 other
species and 100,000+ hybrids you can grow instead.
-danny

Oh, wonderful CITES!
 

So they wouldn't be threatened in their native habitat if more collecting
were allowed? It's acceptable to strip all of the plants out of their
habitat as long as they are freely available to the horticultural trade?

I guess I'd better elaborate. No, I do not find that acceptable. What irks
me is that enforcement of conservation often appears to be aimed more at
researchers and those who would reproduce the plants, whether for sale or to
replenish their numbers in their natural habitat than at poachers. I don't
mean to suggest that poachers are never caught (they are). Researchers are
far more likely to go through the proper channels than your average poacher,
right? And then they jump through all the hoops and sometimes are denied
anyway, while the poachers go merrily on their way. I'm trying to be fairly
specific here so I don't get flamed again; my asbestos suit is at the
cleaners.

If the country doesn't allow them to be sold, there are about 20,000 other
species and 100,000+ hybrids you can grow instead.

No need to be snarky. I think better of you than that.

Diana

Oh, wonderful CITES!
 

Are signatory countries able to grant export permits to selected other
countries or is it an ALL or none kind of deal.

So if Country "A" has a plant within it's border and declares it to be on
the Appendix I list can it grant export permits to Country 'B" but not to
country "C"

I *think* the answer is no. If you can find the plant for sale in Country
'B" but country 'A" does not allow export, then you can not get legal
permission to bring into Country 'C" from Country "B" or to buy it legally
inside country 'B" or Country C...no matter how it got there. Of course, I
could be wrong.

If country A does not allow it's export, it doesn't matter how the plant is
collected or propagated inside country A, you can't have it if you don't
live there.

If you want to buy a plant from outside your country, make sure you
understand permit requirements; don't count on the vendor to know. If you
find a plant inside your country that you question, check with your
government's CITES office to be sure. Your government's Cites office can
help with both issues.

On the other hand, if you want to express an opinion, you've come to the
right place.

IMHO, a thread with a name like this one was meant to burn. Enjoy it, but
be wary...and bring your thick skin.

Oh, wonderful CITES!
 

Diana Kulaga wrote:
So they wouldn't be threatened in their native habitat if more collecting
were allowed? It's acceptable to strip all of the plants out of their
habitat as long as they are freely available to the horticultural trade?

I guess I'd better elaborate. No, I do not find that acceptable. What irks
me is that enforcement of conservation often appears to be aimed more at
researchers and those who would reproduce the plants, whether for sale or to
replenish their numbers in their natural habitat than at poachers. I don't
mean to suggest that poachers are never caught (they are).

But that does not argue for doing away with CITES as so many orchid
growers like to claim. It indicates that enforcement needs to be more
strict.

If the Phrag kovachii saga tells us anything, it is that free trade in
flasked seedlings is insufficient to prevent over-exploitation of wild
populations. Peruvians started flasking P. kovachii soon after it was
discovered, but the known localities were stripped long before those
flasked plants could possibly have matured.

Flasking has been possible since the 1920s, but cheap collected paphs
were on sale in the AOS bulletin as late as the early 1980s. It was
CITES, not flasking, that limited sales of collected Paphs.

If the country doesn't allow them to be sold, there are about 20,000 other
species and 100,000+ hybrids you can grow instead.

No need to be snarky. I think better of you than that.

I'll second Danny's sentiment. No one is gonna die if they can't have
a Paph hangianum or a Phrag kovachii, but we orchid growers spend more
time lamenting that CITES prevents us from growing the latest greatest
species, than we do lamenting the loss of the wild plants. Lets not
forget that the poachers are selling the plants to orchid growers.

Nick

Wonderful CITES
 

Danny:

1. CITES has been around, and applicable to orchids, for a VERY long time
now.

2. CITES has NOT prevented the situation Reka posted about, nor many, many,
other similar situations. And it won't, as long as the only way to own such
species is illegal, because those who really want them and can pay are going
to get them anyway -- at inflated prices, due to the illegality, which only
increases the motivation of the locals to go harvest them for high (to them)
pay. Viet Nam is a 3d world country. I don't know the average hourly wage,
but I'll be very surprised if it's as much as US$1/hour. Anybody know?

The vast majority of the people involved in this illegal trade, especially
the native collectors and the ultimate purchasers, will never get caught,
and they know it. Leaving aside the question of guilt or innocence, the
prosecutions of Norris and Kovach are exceptions, not the rule. I haven't
seen anything on any of Norris' _customers_ being prosecuted, and I doubt
anyone could even find the "collectors" or their names, so as to prosecute
them, if anyone were interested in doing so. This has always been true, but
is even more so now and for the last few years when the various and assorted
"international police" agencies are being required to concentrate so heavily
on terrorism.

3. Had there been reasonable "exceptions," back in 1996 when this
particular species was "re-discovered," a commercial grower or two could
have taken A FEW plants for further propagation. Had such grower(s) been
allowed to do that back in 1996, then there most likely would have been
legal flasks on the market by 1998-1999, legal seedlings in another year or
two, and by now legal flowering-size plants. All artificially-propagated,
so that the vast majority of potential parents left back in the wild could
keep on growing and re-seeding.

There are probably still a few people who would want the illegal
wild-collected plants just for the "thrill" of it, even at a premium price,
but the major demand could have been supplied from the
artificially-propagated plants referenced above, the "illegal" premium would
be reduced as a result, thus reducing the pay of the native collectors, and
IMHO a lot more of them would still be growing in the wild.

You have mentioned before, the idea of having knowledgeable people going out
to collect some specimens in cases like this, and turning them over to some
gov't agency/bureaucracy. This will never accomplish the goal. The folks
with the expertise are not going to donate their time and energy just to
turn the plants over to a regime that will almost certainly kill them before
any viable seed is produced, and even if they did, the goal can't be
accomplished without that viable seed and the expertise/$$ to turn that seed
into actual plants. To work, such a program has to be given to someone with
both the expertise and a strong financial motivation to make it work. Civil
servants don't get fired for incompetence; they usually get promoted! But
entrepreneurs can't afford to fail very often ...

One final thought: I would very much prefer to see these species continue
to grow in the wild, at least until their "wild" is
burned/cleared/bulldozed. But if that truly CAN'T be achieved, then I would
rather seem them grow "in captivity" than become totally extinct. Kenni



"danny" wrote in message
. ..
So they wouldn't be threatened in their native habitat if more collecting
were allowed? It's acceptable to strip all of the plants out of their
habitat as long as they are freely available to the horticultural trade?
I don't see any problem with giving countries the right to control their
natural resources (although the application of CITES to preserved flowers
and herbarium specimens is going a little far.) CITES regulates the
shipment of orchids, it's not a ban. If the originating country allows
the species to be sold then they can be shipped with the appropriate
documents. If the country doesn't allow them to be sold, there are about
20,000 other species and 100,000+ hybrids you can grow instead.
-danny

Wonderful CITES
 

As long as there is demand from rich collectors, there will be poaching.
Whether or not there is also legal collecting is irrelevant. It would take
more than a few years for artificial propagation to make any dent in the
pressure to collect wild plants, and then people would still do it as long
as it was profitable. The poachers probably only give the local collectors
a few pennies per plant. I don't blame the local people for collecting
plants to feed their families. The government could probably pay the locals
a lot more to collect them legally and then export them, but that's up to
the individual governments. Many of them want to develop local orchid
nurseries to be the official suppliers for these species, and I don't blame
them. What's wrong with keeping some of the profit locally? The system in
Peru is slowly starting to work, there are legal plants in the U.S. from one
of the Peruvian suppliers and another one should come on line sometime soon.
[By the way, I think you got me mixed up with someone else when you were
talking about having people collect them and turn them over to the
government. I don't think I've ever said that.]

I just get tired of all of the anti-CITES griping, especially when much of
what gets said is false. CITES does not completely stop the trade of
orchids. CITES Appendix 1 plants can be legally imported under the right
conditions. Local laws that stop orchids from being collected are
completely separate from CITES, which only regulates international trade.
CITES has never been the cause of an orchid extinction, and most likely
never will be. It's highly unlikely that either Pk or Paph. vietnamense has
been eradicated in the wild (although Paph. vietnamense has probably had
more damage done to the wild population than Pk, which will probably be
discovered at more sites.) Many (not all) of the anti-CITES people don't
really care about stopping extinction of a species, they just want one of
the restricted plants for their collection. At least with CITES in place
there is a mechanism available for prosecuting the people that are causing
all of the poaching, the collectors in the more developed regions of the
world that are willing to pay the high prices to get the plants smuggled.

It will be interesting to see if there are second generation line-bred Pk's
that get released as flasked seedlings when the legal ones get more common.
I'm sure there are already people breeding with their illegal collected
plants. Once the artificially propagated plants are demonstrably better
than the wild ones, then some of the collecting pressure may ease.

-danny

"Kenni Judd" wrote in message
...
Danny:

1. CITES has been around, and applicable to orchids, for a VERY long time
now.

2. CITES has NOT prevented the situation Reka posted about, nor many,
many, other similar situations. And it won't, as long as the only way to
own such species is illegal, because those who really want them and can
pay are going to get them anyway -- at inflated prices, due to the
illegality, which only increases the motivation of the locals to go
harvest them for high (to them) pay. Viet Nam is a 3d world country. I
don't know the average hourly wage, but I'll be very surprised if it's as
much as US$1/hour. Anybody know?

The vast majority of the people involved in this illegal trade, especially
the native collectors and the ultimate purchasers, will never get caught,
and they know it. Leaving aside the question of guilt or innocence, the
prosecutions of Norris and Kovach are exceptions, not the rule. I haven't
seen anything on any of Norris' _customers_ being prosecuted, and I doubt
anyone could even find the "collectors" or their names, so as to prosecute
them, if anyone were interested in doing so. This has always been true,
but is even more so now and for the last few years when the various and
assorted "international police" agencies are being required to concentrate
so heavily on terrorism.

3. Had there been reasonable "exceptions," back in 1996 when this
particular species was "re-discovered," a commercial grower or two could
have taken A FEW plants for further propagation. Had such grower(s) been
allowed to do that back in 1996, then there most likely would have been
legal flasks on the market by 1998-1999, legal seedlings in another year
or two, and by now legal flowering-size plants. All
artificially-propagated, so that the vast majority of potential parents
left back in the wild could keep on growing and re-seeding.

There are probably still a few people who would want the illegal
wild-collected plants just for the "thrill" of it, even at a premium
price, but the major demand could have been supplied from the
artificially-propagated plants referenced above, the "illegal" premium
would be reduced as a result, thus reducing the pay of the native
collectors, and IMHO a lot more of them would still be growing in the
wild.

You have mentioned before, the idea of having knowledgeable people going
out to collect some specimens in cases like this, and turning them over to
some gov't agency/bureaucracy. This will never accomplish the goal. The
folks with the expertise are not going to donate their time and energy
just to turn the plants over to a regime that will almost certainly kill
them before any viable seed is produced, and even if they did, the goal
can't be accomplished without that viable seed and the expertise/$$ to
turn that seed into actual plants. To work, such a program has to be
given to someone with both the expertise and a strong financial motivation
to make it work. Civil servants don't get fired for incompetence; they
usually get promoted! But entrepreneurs can't afford to fail very often
...

One final thought: I would very much prefer to see these species continue
to grow in the wild, at least until their "wild" is
burned/cleared/bulldozed. But if that truly CAN'T be achieved, then I
would rather seem them grow "in captivity" than become totally extinct.
Kenni

Wonderful CITES
 

Just to irritate things more, wouldn't it be better to at least attempt
something like forbidding publication of new species discovery until
years after the fact? That would give time for propagation, albeit making
someone pretty rich selling the first flask babies. But it might protect
the wild species.
--
Reka

This is LIFE! It's not a rehearsal. Don't miss it!
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html

Wonderful CITES
 

Good luck with that!

You thing the naming of Phrag. kovachii caused a ruckus in the immediate
timeframe, think of what would happen if you had to wait years. Memories
and even records can get mighty "cloudy" over time.

--

Ray Barkalow - First Rays Orchids - www.firstrays.com
Plants, Supplies, Artwork, Books and Lots of Free Info!


"Reka" wrote in message
.. .
Just to irritate things more, wouldn't it be better to at least attempt
something like forbidding publication of new species discovery until
years after the fact? That would give time for propagation, albeit making
someone pretty rich selling the first flask babies. But it might protect
the wild species.
--
Reka

This is LIFE! It's not a rehearsal. Don't miss it!
http://www.rolbox.it/hukari/index.html

Wonderful CITES
 

Taxonomy is of course a science. It scrapes the bottom of the science
barrel but it technically still classes as a science :-). In the world
of publish or perish, you've got buckley's chance of getting any
scientist to wait longer than necessary to publish new names. With
competition for grants and the possibility of someone else publishing
first, I don't know if you can blame them for shouting out loud when
they find or make up ;-) a new species.
Andrew

Wonderful CITES
 

Ray wrote:

"Reka" wrote in message
.. .
Just to irritate things more, wouldn't it be better to at least attempt
something like forbidding publication of new species discovery until
years after the fact? That would give time for propagation, albeit making
someone pretty rich selling the first flask babies. But it might protect
the wild species.

Good luck with that!

You thing the naming of Phrag. kovachii caused a ruckus in the immediate
timeframe, think of what would happen if you had to wait years. Memories
and even records can get mighty "cloudy" over time.

And it would only work in cases where a species was first discovered by
researchers. In a situation like P. kovachii, it would have no effect,
because people would want the plant regardless of whether it was named.
It would also put the burden of solving the problem on people who did
not cause it in the first place.

So, assuming that
a) in the case of the Vietnamese Paphs and South American Phrags, the
main threat is the horticultural trade (the things grow on
mountainsides and were surviving quite happily until the orchid trade
discovered them),

b) our primary goal is preserving the wild plants, and the ability to
cultivate them is secondary,

c) we want to prevent the problem of previously smuggled plants being
"laundered" when artificially propagated seedlings become available,

how about this solution:

Ban in perpetuity the sale of those species affected. Have the AOS,
RHS, and other regional societies ban from shows and judging the
species and any hybrids derived from those species. Make this ban
permanent. Blacklist any nurseries selling the plants. Fine and
confiscate the collections of anyone caught with those particular
species.

This would immediately reduce the monetary value of the plants. People
with smuggled plants could no longer hope to show or sell their plants
in the future when seedlings become more common, so there would be less
incentive to smuggle in the first place. Sure, some people would still
want to grow them secretly, but we all know that orchidists love to
show off their plants, and if there was no hope of ever ever doing
that, fewer people would be interested. The risk would be greater
than the payoff.

Since we orchid growers have created the problems for Vietnamese paphs
and P. kovachii, this solution would appropriately put the burden of
solving it on us as well.

Nick

Wonderful CITES
 

Sorry, Danny, upon looking back I see you were not the one who made that
suggestion.

My problems with CITES, however, are not the motives you ascribe to "many"
of the opponents.

While you're correct that CITES technically doesn't stop all _legal_orchid
trade, it makes it far less profitable. I will also agree that a big
portion of this problem is sloppy, inconsistent, and often just plain WRONG
enforcement. Meanwhile, I don't think it's doing much, if anything at all,
to stop the _illegal_ trade, but is if anything making the latter _more_
profitable for those willing to take the [so far, relatively remote]
likelihood of being caught. Just my 2 cents, Kenni

..
"danny" wrote in message
.. .
As long as there is demand from rich collectors, there will be poaching.
Whether or not there is also legal collecting is irrelevant. It would
take more than a few years for artificial propagation to make any dent in
the pressure to collect wild plants, and then people would still do it as
long as it was profitable. The poachers probably only give the local
collectors a few pennies per plant. I don't blame the local people for
collecting plants to feed their families. The government could probably
pay the locals a lot more to collect them legally and then export them,
but that's up to the individual governments. Many of them want to develop
local orchid nurseries to be the official suppliers for these species, and
I don't blame them. What's wrong with keeping some of the profit locally?
The system in Peru is slowly starting to work, there are legal plants in
the U.S. from one of the Peruvian suppliers and another one should come on
line sometime soon. [By the way, I think you got me mixed up with someone
else when you were talking about having people collect them and turn them
over to the government. I don't think I've ever said that.]

I just get tired of all of the anti-CITES griping, especially when much of
what gets said is false. CITES does not completely stop the trade of
orchids. CITES Appendix 1 plants can be legally imported under the right
conditions. Local laws that stop orchids from being collected are
completely separate from CITES, which only regulates international trade.
CITES has never been the cause of an orchid extinction, and most likely
never will be. It's highly unlikely that either Pk or Paph. vietnamense
has been eradicated in the wild (although Paph. vietnamense has probably
had more damage done to the wild population than Pk, which will probably
be discovered at more sites.) Many (not all) of the anti-CITES people
don't really care about stopping extinction of a species, they just want
one of the restricted plants for their collection. At least with CITES in
place there is a mechanism available for prosecuting the people that are
causing all of the poaching, the collectors in the more developed regions
of the world that are willing to pay the high prices to get the plants
smuggled.

It will be interesting to see if there are second generation line-bred
Pk's that get released as flasked seedlings when the legal ones get more
common. I'm sure there are already people breeding with their illegal
collected plants. Once the artificially propagated plants are
demonstrably better than the wild ones, then some of the collecting
pressure may ease.

-danny

"Kenni Judd" wrote in message
...
Danny:

1. CITES has been around, and applicable to orchids, for a VERY long
time now.

2. CITES has NOT prevented the situation Reka posted about, nor many,
many, other similar situations. And it won't, as long as the only way to
own such species is illegal, because those who really want them and can
pay are going to get them anyway -- at inflated prices, due to the
illegality, which only increases the motivation of the locals to go
harvest them for high (to them) pay. Viet Nam is a 3d world country. I
don't know the average hourly wage, but I'll be very surprised if it's as
much as US$1/hour. Anybody know?

The vast majority of the people involved in this illegal trade,
especially the native collectors and the ultimate purchasers, will never
get caught, and they know it. Leaving aside the question of guilt or
innocence, the prosecutions of Norris and Kovach are exceptions, not the
rule. I haven't seen anything on any of Norris' _customers_ being
prosecuted, and I doubt anyone could even find the "collectors" or their
names, so as to prosecute them, if anyone were interested in doing so.
This has always been true, but is even more so now and for the last few
years when the various and assorted "international police" agencies are
being required to concentrate so heavily on terrorism.

3. Had there been reasonable "exceptions," back in 1996 when this
particular species was "re-discovered," a commercial grower or two could
have taken A FEW plants for further propagation. Had such grower(s) been
allowed to do that back in 1996, then there most likely would have been
legal flasks on the market by 1998-1999, legal seedlings in another year
or two, and by now legal flowering-size plants. All
artificially-propagated, so that the vast majority of potential parents
left back in the wild could keep on growing and re-seeding.

There are probably still a few people who would want the illegal
wild-collected plants just for the "thrill" of it, even at a premium
price, but the major demand could have been supplied from the
artificially-propagated plants referenced above, the "illegal" premium
would be reduced as a result, thus reducing the pay of the native
collectors, and IMHO a lot more of them would still be growing in the
wild.

You have mentioned before, the idea of having knowledgeable people going
out to collect some specimens in cases like this, and turning them over
to some gov't agency/bureaucracy. This will never accomplish the goal.
The folks with the expertise are not going to donate their time and
energy just to turn the plants over to a regime that will almost
certainly kill them before any viable seed is produced, and even if they
did, the goal can't be accomplished without that viable seed and the
expertise/$$ to turn that seed into actual plants. To work, such a
program has to be given to someone with both the expertise and a strong
financial motivation to make it work. Civil servants don't get fired for
incompetence; they usually get promoted! But entrepreneurs can't afford
to fail very often ...

One final thought: I would very much prefer to see these species
continue to grow in the wild, at least until their "wild" is
burned/cleared/bulldozed. But if that truly CAN'T be achieved, then I
would rather seem them grow "in captivity" than become totally extinct.
Kenni

Wonderful CITES
 

Kenni Judd wrote:
While you're correct that CITES technically doesn't stop all _legal_orchid
trade, it makes it far less profitable. I will also agree that a big
portion of this problem is sloppy, inconsistent, and often just plain WRONG
enforcement. Meanwhile, I don't think it's doing much, if anything at all,
to stop the _illegal_ trade, but is if anything making the latter _more_
profitable for those willing to take the [so far, relatively remote]
likelihood of being caught. Just my 2 cents, Kenni

To some extent, I agree with this, but I think that the answer is not
to make legal trade easier. That will have limited effect on smuggling.
Rather, to reduce smuggling, we may need to reduce the international
trade in orchids and increase enforcement of CITES.

If you look at old advertisements, I think you will find that slipper
prices increased and flasked seedlings became more common after Paphs
and Phrags were placed on Appendix 1 in 1989. Flasking is relatively
expensive and labor intensive, so collected plants can often be sold
more cheaply than flasklings. Strict regulation of imports was
required to make domestic slipper flasking economically viable, even
though the technology had been around for decades.

Many of the species currently being smuggled are already well
established in cultivation (P. delenatii, Chinese parvisepalums, etc),
but since the people smuggling and the people flasking are different,
the availablility of flasked plants doesn't necessarily inhibit
smuggling. Artificially propagated plants can actually aid poaching by
making it easier to launder the poached plants. For instance, zillions
of venus flytraps are produced by tissue culture, but poaching still
occurs. Joe Poacher can't do tissue culture, but he can still make a
few bucks poaching. Once the plants are in pots, who can tell the
difference between wild and cultured plants?

If we were to further reduce international trade in orchids, it would
have a limited effect on the average orchid grower. Some newly
discovered species and some foreign clones will be harder to obtain,
but most species are already available domestically. Those people who
make their money importing orchids will suffer, but domestic flasking
labs should benefit. For newly discovered species like P. kovachii, ANY
international trade can mask smuggling, so the obvious answer is to
keep the plants out of cultivation, even though it might be fun to grow
one. As long as the plants are not legally in cultivation, smuggled
plants will stick out like a sore thumb.

On the other hand, relaxing CITES regulations on international trade in
artificially propagated plants might paradoxically make poaching more
common. Prices of slipper orchids would be reduced, and relatively
expensive domestically flasked would have a hard time competing with
cheaper imports. The situation would revert to the pre-1989 market,
and collected plants (though making less money per plant), would be
easier to launder through legal import/export channels.

Nick

Wonderful CITES
 

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? The number of innocent people KILLED during mistaken drug raids
is well documented - are you ready to die for your orchids?

Extreme examples, I know, but I put them out to make people stop and think.

-Eric in SF
www.orchidphotos.org

wrote in message
oups.com...
Kenni Judd wrote:
While you're correct that CITES technically doesn't stop all
_legal_orchid
trade, it makes it far less profitable. I will also agree that a big
portion of this problem is sloppy, inconsistent, and often just plain
WRONG
enforcement. Meanwhile, I don't think it's doing much, if anything at
all,
to stop the _illegal_ trade, but is if anything making the latter _more_
profitable for those willing to take the [so far, relatively remote]
likelihood of being caught. Just my 2 cents, Kenni

To some extent, I agree with this, but I think that the answer is not
to make legal trade easier. That will have limited effect on smuggling.
Rather, to reduce smuggling, we may need to reduce the international
trade in orchids and increase enforcement of CITES.

If you look at old advertisements, I think you will find that slipper
prices increased and flasked seedlings became more common after Paphs
and Phrags were placed on Appendix 1 in 1989. Flasking is relatively
expensive and labor intensive, so collected plants can often be sold
more cheaply than flasklings. Strict regulation of imports was
required to make domestic slipper flasking economically viable, even
though the technology had been around for decades.

Many of the species currently being smuggled are already well
established in cultivation (P. delenatii, Chinese parvisepalums, etc),
but since the people smuggling and the people flasking are different,
the availablility of flasked plants doesn't necessarily inhibit
smuggling. Artificially propagated plants can actually aid poaching by
making it easier to launder the poached plants. For instance, zillions
of venus flytraps are produced by tissue culture, but poaching still
occurs. Joe Poacher can't do tissue culture, but he can still make a
few bucks poaching. Once the plants are in pots, who can tell the
difference between wild and cultured plants?

If we were to further reduce international trade in orchids, it would
have a limited effect on the average orchid grower. Some newly
discovered species and some foreign clones will be harder to obtain,
but most species are already available domestically. Those people who
make their money importing orchids will suffer, but domestic flasking
labs should benefit. For newly discovered species like P. kovachii, ANY
international trade can mask smuggling, so the obvious answer is to
keep the plants out of cultivation, even though it might be fun to grow
one. As long as the plants are not legally in cultivation, smuggled
plants will stick out like a sore thumb.

On the other hand, relaxing CITES regulations on international trade in
artificially propagated plants might paradoxically make poaching more
common. Prices of slipper orchids would be reduced, and relatively
expensive domestically flasked would have a hard time competing with
cheaper imports. The situation would revert to the pre-1989 market,
and collected plants (though making less money per plant), would be
easier to launder through legal import/export channels.

Nick