Yes, actually, I do have a better solution. But it is not a solution for this specific problem, but all of the plant problems. A forum will be hosted on it to discuss and revise this plan, shortly. It goes something like this:
PART I Outlining the problem Fantastic and desirable species exist in the wild in many countries. Let us for instance take Phrag kovachii. P. kovachii is from Peru and this is called the "range country." This highly desirable species is subject to CITES, however CITES only regulates the trade inbetween countries, and has absolutely no say about what goes on with a species inside its country of origin. For example, with regard to CITES you can trade them, breed them, propagate them, eat them, or burn them and it is all CITES compliant. Obviously this does nothing for the conservation of the species, habitat, nor does it address the problem of over-collection. The simple fact is that these wild plants are highly desirable, and they will be collected regardless of any laws in place. PART II Desirable outcomes Some things we could hope to achieve might be conservation of the species in the wild, conservation of the species itself by having it in cultivation, putting a stop to over-collection, putting a stop to smuggling and to allow the range country to benefit from its natural resources. These sure would be nice, and it sounds like fantasy. Can such a thing really be achieved? Keep reading. PART III Implementation I have been thinking about this problem, and I think I have a solution that would make everyone happy. Well, everyone except the smugglers. I suggest a modification of CITES, and increased cooperation and unilateral interpretation between countries. The range country would have public or commercial established but government supervised entities. These entities would go out and wild-collect the plants of the new species. The plants would then go back to the establishment and begin to be cultivated and numbered. So now you have plants out of the wild and into the greenhouse, in the range country. Now, CITES creates a special type of permit which allows people to register as breeders, under the agreement that the plants they may import with the permit be used only for propagation purposes. For each country, they are allowed to purchase a certain amount of wild-collected plants. This would have to be a non-negotiable number, such as 20 plants per species. The range country would then be contacted, given the permit info from the importer, sign a contract for royalties or outright purchase with the importer, then issue a permit and ship the plants out. These plants, as agreed, may only be used for breeding and micropropagation of the species itself. Basically the range country would be outsourcing the lab work to other countries. Part IV, What? Wait, what about the smugglers? Why wouldn't people just smuggle them? Okay, smuggling comes down to supply and demand. I will be posting a paper to explain this, by one of my friends. If there is demand, somebody will supply the plants, legal or not. If you have chosen to refuse trade, then all the plants will be smuggled. However, if you open up the trade, but regulate it instead of pretending it isn't going to happen, then you have control over it. It costs very little money to steal plants out of the wild. However, in smuggling them, there is lower quality, and risk of law infractions. If you created the ability to purchase the plants legally, demand for illegal plants would drop. But how do you make sure there are more legal plants than illegal plants? We would have to make there be better incentive for people to sell the plants above the table, as opposed to below the table. You can do this be removing the competitive advantages of smuggled plants. By offering a legal alternative, breeders will probably choose to by legal and certified plants over illegal and somewhat difficult to get low-quality jungle plants. You also have to consider who the market is. The market for the illegal plants are typically commercial breeders, a few collectors, and natives of the range country. The natives of the country are a problem we cannot legislate around with international law. The only native greenhouses and labs can solve that problem. Collectors are not those who by in huge quantities of plants, so the demand there is negligable. However, commercial breeders like the asian, germans, euros, and americans are huge consumers of illegal plants. They consume these plants in order to get ahead in the market for when the plants become legal on someone else's dime. Well, what if we gave them that edge and they didn't have to compete for it by stripping the jungles? Okay, this is getting long winded, and I have to go make a sandwich. Bottom line is, there is a website online that will be available to the public, shortly, where we can discuss all this. I have all of these issues worked out pretty well to make everyone happy, but I don't have the fortitute in my fingers to type it all out right now. Email me if you want to discuss it, discression assured. If anyone cares to hear more, I can finish posting up some more of the general Q&A about making this all work. Steve Topletz _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
