Jerry, I've already commented on your Version 1, so I'm not going to repeat myself.
It is clear from your Version 2 that you are still getting a couple of fundamentals totally confused, and until you've sorted them out, your proposal doesn't stand a chance. They are: 1) To whom are you addressing this proposal ? You said "I will take these letters and send them to management authorities and CITES officials", but these are two different groups, and need to be treated differently. Most of your complaints relate to the US interpretation of CITES, and should be addressed to the US Management Authority. If you send them to CITES, they'll rapidly get dropped into the nearest bin. Some of your suggestions related to CITES, and if you send them to the US authority, they'll most likely shrug their shoulders and say "not our problem". 2) You have attempted to put a spin on the CITES Mission Statement that dramatically reduces your credibility. CITES are likely to think "This guy hasn't got a clue about our basics, so why bother wasting time reading what he says ?". Your spin goes as follows. You said: "The entire reason CITES was created in the first place was to protect wild populations of living organisms that were threatened by trade." No, no, no, no, no, never, totally and absolutely not. This is back-to front. The cart is before the horse. The tail is wagging the dog. You've correctly quoted the CITES homepage: *"CITES' aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival." *This sentence means exactly what it says. The job of CITES is to squeeze international trade, not to protect wild populations. More precisely, it says that CITES aims to squeeze international trade (that's you), until the international trade's activities (that's you, again) no longer pose a threat to the survival of wild animals and plants. Since fairly-recent well-publicised events have highlighted that the international trade continues to pose a major threat to the survival of wild plants, I cannot see anyone in CITES deciding to ease the squeeze, either now or in the near future. Peter O'Byrne _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
