Carson E. Whitlow had a good rant, starting "Recently, a requested CITES permit for salvaged plants was refused by the Canadian CITES office because "we cannot allow you to profit from a plant that was once wild." Apparently, the Canadian CITES Administration is as arragent and stupid as those administering the US CITES. .........."
Carson, we've covered this ground before. You know as well as I do that there are two totally different types of salvage. In one of them, you go onto the logging site (roadworks, whatever) just before or just after the chainsaws (bulldozers, dumpsters, whatever) and rescue as many orchids as you can from imminent destruction. The second sort of "salvage" is typified by that guy from Kentuck who was selling locally-collected Cypripediums on e-bay. He was driving his quad around the backwoods, and since the plants were in danger of getting run over by his vehicle, he dug them up in case they got damaged. This guy reminded me of the time that a group of profiteers flew to Sarawak with the intention of "rescuing" Paphiopedilums from a mountainside which just happened to be several kilometers away from the airport development project which they claimed was endangering them. Carson, I've got two questions for you: 1) How do you propose that the CITES guys differentiate between plants that have really been salvaged and plants that have suffered "gratuitous salvage" ? 2) Why does salvage have to be followed by export for profit, when replanting them somewhere nearby is usually a more environmentally-sound option ? Peter O'Byrne in Singapore _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
