If possible It would be nice to keep this post up for one week to allow people to see it and comment.
CITES proposal for nursery certification, By Jerry Lee Fischer 07,01,07 To all interested in the subject of Orchid species and hybrids as imports or exports, Recent changes in CITES requirements have made it difficult for nurseries, and hobbyists alike to not only import plants from foreign countries directly but even acquire them from nurseries in the country in which hobbyists and professional growers live. In the US for example the requirements are that a nursery must now have a master permit. Every plant to be exported whether it is a species or hybrid must be approved by the US Fish and Wildlife authorities with information on the propagation methods (whether from seed, cuttings or cloning techniques) if not then whom the plants were purchased from with receipts, pot sizes of plants in stock, annual production, number of plants to be exported each year, whether parental stock is maintained and how many, from seed or cuttings etc. and number of years in production. Imagine filling out such a permit (in my case it took 250 hours) and then imagine it taking 9 months to a year to get it. The idea is that once you get this permit single issue copies are purchased in advance and the nursery owner can fill them out when orders are received and ship them out rather quickly compared to the old system of waiting 3-6 months for a single use permit. In the mean time orders cannot be processed and commercial growers are put in situation of economic hardship. Adding any new plants to your permit requires all the same detailed information, costs a lot and there is no guarantee that the permits will arrive in a timely manner. Several US growers have given up on exports and many more will follow suit. Hybrids have become another problem, as one has to either be approved for specific hybrids on the master permit or have to be approved for specific species that make up the hybrid. At the moment you have to list on your permit the species that make up the hybrids that you want to export. This takes a great deal of time and is really counterproductive. It often requires 20 to 35 hours to complete a permit. The US Fish and Wildlife service has come up with a way of amending your permit to accept hybrids but it still requires reporting and is limited to certain hybrids. The various countries management authorities and CITES officials are, I believe unaware of the great advances in the laboratory production of orchids that have taken place within the past few years. Nurseries are now able to reproduce in reasonable numbers those plants that were once considered difficult or even impossible to produce. The continued over-regulation of artificially propagated plants and the nurseries that produce them is in my opinion a complete waste of CITES resources. The entire reason CITES was created in the first place was to protect wild populations of living organisms that were threatened by trade. This is what it says in the first paragraph on <http://www.cites.org/>www.cites.org home page, CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. If anything the rapid artificial production and propagation of orchid plants helps to ensure that wild stock will remain where it is. Many of our nurseries are really no longer trading in wild stock at all. Why over-regulate it? Recent examples of how things have changed can be found in PERU where no wild collecting for export is allowed. All plants must now be produced at the approved nurseries from seed or division of established stock. Phragmipedium kovachii would never have been allowed for export legally except for the work of serious nursery owners and the Peruvian government. By allowing a few plants to be collected and used for seed propagation via tissue culture these plants are now all over the world and the demand for wild plants no longer exists. Other countries like Ecuador and Brazil are following suit. If continued restriction and over-regulation continues in its present state there will be less and less plants available and eventually the hobby itself will be threatened. Orchid Societies memberships would begin to decline, as there would be no new plant material for hobbyists to be interested in. Nurseries interested in growing and exporting species or hybrids have already declined in The US and other parts of the globe. The process or acquiring export permits has become so onerous that some nurseries have chosen to give up their export business. Many without the ability to export will not survive. There is an important synergy between Orchid Societies, hobbyists and commercial growers. Without commercial growers there would be few hobbyists. Without hobbyists there would be no orchid societies. The articles written about new orchid species or hybrids would fall on deaf ears if the plants being written about were not available to hobbyists in a legal, artificially propagated manner. We are all interdependent on one another and it would be good if we spoke with one harmonized voice. Nurseries (world-wide) are experiencing tightening restrictions and it would seem that CITES officials want a reduction in trade of any kind. No one can argue with the good intentions of CITES namely the protection of species in the wild. No one can argue that each countrys department of agriculture has the important job of controlling the introduction of new pests and diseases through the importation of plants. These are not issues that nursery owners have contentions with. What we are concerned about and what we hope Orchid Societies and hobbyists would show their concern with is a movement within CITES in what many growers feel is the wrong direction and that is the increasing regulation and control in the trade of truly artificially propagated plants. It is time for change regarding trade of Orchids and other plants that are truly artificially propagated. The direction of this reform would include a radical change in the way that Orchids are regulated in trade. My proposal is simple in concept: 1.Protect all wild orchids by elevating the whole group to appendix 1 status. 100 years ago there were 1.5 billion people on the planet. Today there are some 6.5 billion and in a little more than 40 years that number will grow to over 9 billion people demanding land and timber. Tropical rainforests are now estimated to be falling at the rate of 5 acres per 2.4 seconds. Protecting all orchids to the highest level will be required sooner or later. Why not make the change now? 2.Certify nurseries that are truly growing, or buying for resale orchids that are artificially propagated. Let those certified nurseries trade freely with a certification number or stamp which would be recognized and accepted by all signatory members of the CITES treaty. Nurseries that are already certified for export would automatically be given the Certification stamp or number to allow free trade of the plants they produce or trade in. These changes include not allowing any wild collection for export of any Orchid plants unless for the following reasons: 1. A nursery in the country of origin would want to add a small number of wild plants to their breeding stock say 5 12 plants of any given species. These wild collected plants would have to have approval and supervision from the country of origin management authorities and that the collection of said plants would not prove detrimental to the wild population. These plants could not be exported but used only for breeding stock. Only seedlings or mature plants derived from seed could be exported. 2. In the case of a rescue operation where orchid plants are going to be destroyed due to development the plants could be collected with government permission given to approved nurseries in the country of origin. Once the plants are collected they could not be sold for a period of 2-3 years when the plant would then become established and would have grown out of the jungle growth. These plants would then trade on a CITES permit as rescued and would require that distinction on the plant labels and any CITES or PHYTO paperwork with actual import permit numbers and dates along with the rescued designation. These requirements would only apply to the original export from the country of origin, after that the plants could be traded without permits but would require that only CITES certified nurseries could trade or re-export them. 3. Appendix I, or Appendix II? Why have 2 permits? Giving all wild orchid plants (only) Appendix 1 status would eliminate the need for export permits for art prop plants at all as wild plants would be completely protected from collecting and reselling except by the processes outlined above. This would in effect remove truly art prop plants from the treaty except for the certification of the nursery in question and the plants it produces or trades in from other certified nurseries. Flasked seedlings: There is a lot of confusion about flasked Orchid seedlings and what is legal and what is not. The CITES treaty clearly states that any and all orchid seedlings traded in vitro are exempt from CITES regulations as long as a phyto accompanies them. Different countries have different interpretations as to what this means. The US for instance will allow flasked seedlings of any orchids into the country but once they come out of flasks one must be able to prove that the parents were legal. This is an impossible task and flawed in terms of legality. If illegal aliens come into the US and have a child that child is an automatic US citizen. Plants IN VITRO should be considered in the same light. They are in the final definition of the treaty Artificially propagated plants. I am not condoning the illegal collecting of wild orchid plants for the purpose of exporting seedlings in flask, I am just saying that it is impossible to control or regulate the movement of seedlings in flask under the present definitions of the treaty. Certified nursery proposal in need of your help. The biggest change I would like to propose is that nurseries be certified for export of Artificially propagated plants and that this Certification would allow Orchid plants so produced to be traded without a formal complicated, highly detailed permit but just require a CITES nursery certificate number or stamp in a CITES permits place. The program would still be under CITES control but the need for lengthy accounting for any of the plants produced should be greatly reduced or better yet eliminated. Nurseries that have been dealing with management authorities for many years should have an easy transition into the new process. Nurseries that are applying for a new certification would have to go through a certification process in the beginning but as a nurserys inventory grows by propagation or acquisition (this would be for art prop material only as wild collecting would no longer be allowed) there would be no need to keep reporting all of the art prop stock acquired, bred or divided to the management authorities. My worldwide goal is for interested orchid growers whether hobbyist or commercial and Orchid societies to consider these proposed changes in the treaty, make adjustments if necessary, gain a consensus, sign documents of support for the changes and petition the CITES management authorities within each regulated country as well as the responsible CITES officials in Switzerland. If we can do this in significant numbers than the CITES officials should respond and help create positive change. I would appreciate it very much if interested parties would comment on my ideas and at some point I would like to present the proposal to the proper officials here in the US and Switzerland. If you agree with the above plan I need a letter of support by e-mail. If you would like to debate these ideas it is best done on the forums where I have posted this proposal. Jerry Lee Fischer Orchids Limited 4630 Fernbrook Lane Plymouth Minnesota 55446 USA Fax: 763-557-6956 E-mail <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED] Orchids Limited 4630 Fernbrook Lane N. Plymouth, Minnesota 55446 USA Toll-free: 1-800-669-6006 Local: 763-559-6425 Fax: 763-557-6956 Website: www.orchidweb.com Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
