The solutions to trade in orchids are really quite simple:
#1 Ban all trade in wild collected specimens.
#2 Allow all trade in true Art Prop plants regardless of whether they are species or hybrids. No Cites permits should be needed for these.
There are ways to implement these 2 statements. I can explain them (I have before) but I won't bore you here. while we are debating these things endlessly the tropical forests are falling at the rate of a football field a second. I am quite sure that more orchids are lost in a week than have ever been collected in the history of man. Do the math, it is more than 529,000 acres lost in a year. This number will double in the next 47 years as the demand for timber doubles.
Let's work on a sensible system. Cites should not regulate art prop plants in nurseries yet it seems that is the focus. Perhaps the treaty should be abolished and a new treaty called the "Convention (for the) International Protection (of ) Endangered Species" should be established. The focus would be (and the money would be spent) on habitat protection, educating countries as to the plant resources that exist and how to protect and propagate them. There would also be an emphasis on deriving economic value from the forest without cutting it down. Whether it be Eco-tourism or the discovery and subsequent propagation and distribution of new species by the range countries nurseries. There are also medicinal plants and all of the value seen and unseen that goes with protecting any ecosystem. The intrinsic value is far too easily overlooked.
Think about the forests of paper generated every time I or anyone else has to get a permit to bring Art Prop plants from one country to another. When I go to the UK for example I have to have a permit for each genus. I end up with 50 or 60 permits from their end in triplicate, not to mention the paperwork from this end and the 2 to 3 months we have to wait for the single use permits. How is that benefiting the environment? How is that protecting species in the range states?
It's spring in Minnesota and the Cyps. are in bloom. The sweet smell of apricots can be detected from the flowers of Cyp. parviflora.
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