Hi Jerry In your OGD V9 #213 response to the other Peter, you said:
"The vietnamese (Paphiopedilum) species are now so prevalent due to flasked seedling trade that the threat to the wild populations (what is left) is greatly reduced from plant collectors." and "Getting the plants into cultivation as quickly as possible through seed production is the best means to prevent species loss from exploitation." Sorry, but I have to disagree. In Central Vietnam in April this year, street-traders offered me illegally-collected flowering-size specimens of P. callosum for 15,000 VnD (about US$ 0.90). The traders clearly didn't value them much ... they were asking 5 times as much for Dendrobium amabile in full bloom. This was "tourist" price ... to a local, the asking price would have been much lower, maybe one-tenth as much. Also, this was "asking price" ... I didn't haggle to find out what the "selling" price would have been. And I didn't buy anything, either. My perspective, living in this part of the world, is totally different to yours. I see an increase in the threat to wild populations from commercial collectors, not a reduction. Orchid-growing has always been popular in Asia, and as people become more affluent, more and more are starting to grow orchids ... and then they get hooked and expand their collections, just like people do in the US. These people also travel more and buy more orchids to take home. In the last decade there has been a staggering increase in Asian affluence (eg China's economic miracle), and a corresponding staggering increase intra-regional tourism. This has created markets for orchid-sales where none existed a decade ago. Orchid-selling is booming. As you travel around the region, you see roadside stalls selling orchids. A decade ago these stalls were run by local farmers for selling their farm produce. Nowadays they supplement their farm-produce income by selling wild-collected orchids to the tourists. I'm afraid that Art. Prop. plants provide no competition. Not only are they far more expensive (can you offer flowering-size P. callosum for less than 90 US cents ?), but they are not available in most of the places where these tourists actually buy orchids. The ever-increasing publicity surrounding orchids actually makes more people want them. Your Art. Prop. actually encourages people to buy orchids, thereby making things worse. And yes, the books and articles I write have exactly the same result. People are using my "A to Z" book as a shopping aid ... they show the book to the locals on the roadside stalls and say "do you have this one "? While I sympathise with your desires (I have nothing against the free trade of Art. Prop. orchids), they don't seem very relevant to the situation that I see all around me. In your response to me, you said: "require that all nurseries in any signatory country to be certified for art prop export. The various countries could in fact certify the nurseries under an overall umbrella or process overseen by CITES but CITES would be the registrar in the end." Jerry, this is pie-in-the-sky. Other than Singapore, I cannot think of a single tropical 3rd-world countries that is in a position to do this.... hell, they cannot even keep track of every small-scale orchid trader. Should your proposal ever get placed before the COP, most range-countries' immediate response would be that it is yet another attempt to deprive them of the profits of their biodiversity. Look at it from their point of view. All orchid species to be placed on Appendix 1, while allowing free trade in Art. Prop. orchids ? That translates as an attempt to kill-off indigenous orchid nurseries in range countries while creating a mechanism by which rich countries can corner the world market. Your proposal contains no mechanism by which the range-countries' can profit from their own biodiversity (biodiversity ownership is a red-hot issue ... look at the furore over H5N1 samples), and contains nothing that encourages range-countries to develop their own orchid-industries. There is nothing in it for them. They'll never vote for it. Cheers, Peter O'Byrne _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
