# Viet/Chinese Species for Sale at WOC



## Slipperhead (Feb 1, 2008)

Say, did anyone see the _helenaes _and _hangs _being sold openly at the WOC?


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## Ernie (Feb 1, 2008)

Yep. Check out some of the other WOC threads for silly discussions... 

-Ernie


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## WolfDog1 (C. Williams) (Feb 1, 2008)

Yes. I bought a flask of hangianum and then returned it to the vendor. It was a very hard decision to return it, but I did. 

Craig


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## rdlsreno (Feb 1, 2008)

That is true! I saw Craig's face as he brought back the flask.ity:

Ramon


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## Hien (Feb 1, 2008)

WolfDog1 said:


> Yes. I bought a flask of hangianum and then returned it to the vendor. It was a very hard decision to return it, but I did.
> 
> Craig



I have to admit that I truly admire your strong conviction.
I would not be able to act similarly if in the same situation..


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## SlipperKing (Feb 1, 2008)

WolfDog1 said:


> Yes. I bought a flask of hangianum and then returned it to the vendor. It was a very hard decision to return it, but I did.
> 
> Craig



I'm assuming the vender didn't have the legal paperwork inorder to sell here in the US?


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## Ernie (Feb 2, 2008)

WolfDog1 said:


> Yes. I bought a flask of hangianum and then returned it to the vendor. It was a very hard decision to return it, but I did.
> 
> Craig



!!! You're a better person than most Craig. Your secret was safe with us.  

-Ernie


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## kentuckiense (Feb 2, 2008)

WolfDog1 said:


> Yes. I bought a flask of hangianum and then returned it to the vendor. It was a very hard decision to return it, but I did.
> 
> Craig



Wow. I would've bought the _hell_ out of those flasks and skipped merrily back to the car.


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## Slipperhead (Feb 2, 2008)

Flasks of various species and especially their hybrids i.e. "Fruit of the Forbidden Tree" were abundant. 

Anyone see the bareroot plants and large photos advertising them?

Hangs and Helenae? Hmmm.....there may be photos...

I simply don't understand how this could be allowed on the "world stage"!


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## jacamarorchids (Feb 2, 2008)

If the WOC was in Canada those plants would be fine! sure is funny how it is up to each country how they wish to enforce the rules of CITIES. My local society had just obtained a CITIES permit to import paph species for our spring show. helenaes and hangs are on the list of plants that are being legally imported. all you need to do is move to Canada and you can have anything you want!

Bryan


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## rdlsreno (Feb 2, 2008)

jacamarorchids said:


> If the WOC was in Canada those plants would be fine! sure is funny how it is up to each country how they wish to enforce the rules of CITIES. My local society had just obtained a CITIES permit to import paph species for our spring show. helenaes and hangs are on the list of plants that are being legally imported. all you need to do is move to Canada and you can have anything you want!
> 
> Bryan



I wish!!

Ramon


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## Kyle (Feb 2, 2008)

Whose the vendor? Is this the Victoria or Vancouver show?

Kyle


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## jacamarorchids (Feb 2, 2008)

Kyle
it is the Victoria Show, Sun moon is the vendor. I dont think that Orchid fest or Vancouver have the CITIES import permits so if you want anything I can get it for you at the Victoria Show and then bring it to the Orchid fest if you are going to be there or mail them to you

Bryan


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## WolfDog1 (C. Williams) (Feb 3, 2008)

The vendor was Sun Moon. They did have CITES paperwork which they used to get the plants/flasks cleared through US Customs. I also saw seedlings of hangianum for sale the day I returned the flask. This was days after US Fish and Wildlife told them to stop selling both the plants and the flasks. However, US Fish and Wildlife are not police. I suspect they may have been able to confiscate the plants/flasks, but as far as I know they did not. 

From my conversations with the head of the US Fish and Wildlife the issue was not the CITES paperwork, that paperwork was fine and did in fact list the plants on it, thus clearing the way for them to be imported into the USA. However, for the USA, the issue is that the country of Vietnam has advised our country that there have been zero plants of hangianum 'legally' exported from their country. Well, that would make all these hangianum plants from Taiwan 'illegal' under the US interpretation of CITES. 

So, although it was hard to return them, it was what I felt I had to do. I don't want to increase the pressure on the wild populations of these plants and thus do not want to support people who take them without permission. 

Craig


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## rdlsreno (Feb 3, 2008)

Good Show Craig!!!:clap: Welcome Bryan to the forum!!

Ramon


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## Heather (Feb 3, 2008)

interesting discussion, and welcome, Bryan.


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## DavidH (Feb 3, 2008)

Craig brings up an interesting point. The other point that needs to be brought up is that the USA considers Taiwan as part of China and some of these particular vietnamese plants are found along the China / Vietnam border area in the Chinese region. Therefore, plants transferred from mainland China to Taiwan do not require CITES, per the convention, because they're considered the same country and instead of Vietnam, the vendors would only need documentation that it came from mainland China, which since they're the same country, means only that they need to say it came from China and the plants are artificially propagated. Flasks are exempt from CITES.

FWS basically has a very tough legal problem. Since the plants were allowed into the country, the worst case scenario is that FWS can say they're illegal and take them, but they could easily be required to reimburse the individual for their expenses because it's a governmental mistake. I've legally imported hangianum with CITES paperwork and a lawyer friend of mine reviewed everything and gave me the opinion that FWS would be hard pressed to even make a case if the plants are scientifically documented as growing in both China and Vietnam (which hangianum is). Since Taiwan is now a signatory to CITES, FWS would basically be stating that another country's legal paperwork is not legal, while the worldwide body says it is. FWS would have to "prove" the plants came from Vietnam, which is pretty much impossible without extensive DNA testing of plants found in Vietnam (which by most accounts no longer can be found).

Hence, FWS tries to make their stand, but they aren't enforcing it because the legal issue is such a Catch-22 that they would most likely lose in federal court and this would force a policy change upon FWS, which they're understandably reluctant to do.

So, the lesson for the day is DON'T buy Vietnamese paphs, because they're illegal....ONLY buy Chinese paphs (that are found on both sides of the border) with legal paperwork from a Chinese supplier.

Clear as mud?


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## WolfDog1 (C. Williams) (Feb 3, 2008)

DavidH, well said on all of those points. I believe you are correct about FWS as well. I suppose some of those reasons may be why they did not confiscate the plants at the 19WOC, but again my assumption. I wish I had hangianum, and someday I will. 

I also heard that there is a Chinese lab that is propogating them and it's not too long before they will arrive in the US without any legal issues at all. 

Thank you for taking the time to 'clear' all of that up for everyone as much of that is what my discussion with the FWS director was all about. 

Craig


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## NYEric (Feb 3, 2008)

Wow. returning the flask was a strong statement. I admire your conviction; but how does returning the flask decrease pressure on the wild population. The more plants that are grown the less pressure there should be on the wild plants, IMO.


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## Ernie (Feb 3, 2008)

DavidH said:


> the USA considers Taiwan as part of China and some of these particular vietnamese plants are found along the China / Vietnam border area in the Chinese region. Therefore, plants transferred from mainland China to Taiwan do not require CITES, per the convention, because they're considered the same country and instead of Vietnam, the vendors would only need documentation that it came from mainland China, which since they're the same country, means only that they need to say it came from China and the plants are artificially propagated. Flasks are exempt from CITES.?



One BIG misconception is that flasks are legal (per your last sentence). This is very untrue. The parents of the plants in the flask MUST have been acquired with full, documented permission of the government under whose jurisdiction they were collected. Rod Grabel made it 100% clear that Vietnam has released ZERO hangianum, helenae, tranlienianum, or vietnamense meeting this criteria. He also stated that China has NOT YET released any of the "border" species, but are in the process of doing so.


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## gonewild (Feb 3, 2008)

You also must remember that the FWS does not have to prove the plants are illegal... the possessor must be able to prove the plants in question are legal.


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## berrywoodson (Feb 3, 2008)

No due process of law.


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## rdlsreno (Feb 3, 2008)

My only question is, Does flooding the market with artificially grown plant kill the collecting of wild plants? 

Ramon


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## jacamarorchids (Feb 3, 2008)

In Canada they accept that flasks are exempt from CITIES. Environment Canada (the cities enforcers) say flasks are legal and exempt from cities. In the USA FWS deems that plants must have been legally exported from the country of origin at some time for flasks to be legal. 

We ran into a situation much like this with birds a few years back. In Texas a friend of mine has a few Blue throated Conures, they are there on breeding loan from FWS as birds that were not legal but to rare to kill (Thank god!) as would have been normal procedure. The country that the birds are native to have never exported any of them legally. therefore FWS deems that no Blue throats no matter how many generations removed from the wild are legal. so the few birds he has are the only ones in the USA and FWS will not allow more to enter. here in Canada they have been legally imported. many countries have bred them and canada allowed the import of Captive bred birds. we now have a healthy population of them and they have even entered the pet trade. but still FWS will not let them into the states as they have not been legally exported from the country of origin. 


it's the same with the paphs 
USA says no but Canada says yes as long as they are NOT wild collected.


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## rdlsreno (Feb 3, 2008)

OK. If the confiscated plants are given to the rescue center, then the rescue center propagate them, Does this make the propagated plants legal?

Ramon


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## NYEric (Feb 3, 2008)

Yes, that's how Antec did it but I think they had a hard time. And about the lab grown plants, I think that's what happened to Phrag besseae, the man bred ones got superior to the wild ones so few people want the wild ones.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Feb 3, 2008)

At this point, probably all the Vietnamese species are lab propagated. Vietnamense is believed to be functionally extinct in nature, I think a few seedlings remain in situ. The others are scarce. But they have been bred and flasked in Europe and Asia to such an extent that as far as I know nearly all on the market (black market in the US) are seed grown. Since only the better ones are bred, theoretically this should help prevent collection by removing the demand. Many people believe that the best conservation solution is to flood the market with propagated seedlings. On the other hand, poor people who can gain some $$ by collecting will continue to do so, even if they are getting less $$. Now if these propagated plants were fully legal, everywhere, some of the profits could theoretically be re-directed to Vietnam, encouraging locals to preserve these plants....Take care, Eric


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## WolfDog1 (C. Williams) (Feb 3, 2008)

NYEric.....I completely agree with your assertion that my returning the flask has no bearing on the wild populations. However, it sends a message to those that would consider taking wild plants, or those that already have. I will not do business with them. I believe that if more people would take such a stand the pressures would decrease. Alternatively, if we could get more flasks and seedlings out into the hands of the general population then the pressure on the wild populations would decrease. That is what has happened with PK as was told during 2 different lectures at 19WOC. 

I don't think that what I did was any big deal. I really wanted the plants. However, in addition to trying to live with myself and keep some sense of integrity about the things I do, I am also a member of the AOS and as such I also support conservation. My small statement was just that and was a personal choice that I made.

Craig


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## Hien (Feb 4, 2008)

Craig,
I think Eric Muehlbauer sentiment is the sensible one. And the Canadians' government is probably wiser than ours.
1)-All the plants that you see at these shows are from flasks. They actually pose no threat to the wild population
2)-The outside world at this point like Canada, European countries have no need to get any wild collected plants from Vietnam. The Vietnamese's claim is just to put a footing in the market (however, from what I heard, the only japanese company that doing orchid production for future exporting of these species & hybrids in Vietnam went bankrupt from all the corrupting & stealing )
3)-probably, at this point the collection to satisfy the inside demand in Vietnam may actually be the cause that put these plants into extinction, since the collectors have to replenish the supply, if a plant die they have to buy new collected one, there is actually no artificially created flasks & seedlings. And it is not illegal to own these plants in Vietnam
4) if you think about it, the labs in Europe & China do not need to import parent plants anymore.




WolfDog1 said:


> NYEric.....I completely agree with your assertion that my returning the flask has no bearing on the wild populations. However, it sends a message to those that would consider taking wild plants, or those that already have. I will not do business with them. I believe that if more people would take such a stand the pressures would decrease. Alternatively, if we could get more flasks and seedlings out into the hands of the general population then the pressure on the wild populations would decrease. That is what has happened with PK as was told during 2 different lectures at 19WOC.
> 
> I don't think that what I did was any big deal. I really wanted the plants. However, in addition to trying to live with myself and keep some sense of integrity about the things I do, I am also a member of the AOS and as such I also support conservation. My small statement was just that and was a personal choice that I made.
> 
> Craig


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## Roth (Feb 5, 2008)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> At this point, probably all the Vietnamese species are lab propagated.
> The others are scarce.
> 
> But they have been bred and flasked in Europe and Asia to such an extent that as far as I know nearly all on the market (black market in the US) are seed grown.
> ...



- Paphiopedilum are collected in bud for the Têt ( coming tomorrow), Lunar New Year. They will still be collected until extinct, "artificial propagation" or not. P.micranthum, armeniacum and hangianum are collected in big boxes, and the plants in spike are now in clay pots with sand, sold for the New Year as a pot plant. It is the same in Viet Nam or China. Every single plant is collected, and they will always be cheaper than growing the plants for some years. You can get micranthum in bud on the streets for 5000vnd, which is about 0.4$, right now, everywhere in Hanoi.

- All the hangianum blooming size and huonglanae blooming size sold everywhere are wild collected plants that have been cultivated at most for a year or two. Sometimes they are only a couple weeks from the forests, many looks very clean. They are still plentiful, but not for many years, trust me.

- The beautiful pictures of hangianum that are available from Taiwan are from "first bloom from the wild" plants. They import massive quantities of hangianum in bud, bloom them, and award them. With experience it is possible to know which plants are collected and which are not, but the leaves are usually extremely clean. Only the leaf texture and shape can tell that the plants are freshly collected ( and the root system of course, but you cannot unpot, and the pictures never show bare root plants). Wild plants have "fatter, more oily leaves". Hard to explain anyway.

- Those selected plants cannot breed yet. If you self any of those "beautiful" hangianum, the plant will die, and not make any single seeds. They are anyway too weak to carry seeds ( but their pollen can be used of course to make hybrids). Most of the hangianum flasks from "selected parents" are coming from wild collected seed capsules. Hangianum have really an amazingly high count of seed capsules in the wild. Some Taiwanese importers offer triple price for plants with a seed caps.

- I think many people will be disappointed when they will bloom the "seedlings" from "selected parents", because they are random seeds from random plants (and there are many hangianum that are damn ugly, you probably have never seen a complete batch with dog ears and 9cm flowers, but I did. And the plants were absolutely gorgeous, huge leafed). There are many colonies, and many colonies with ugly flowers. Those ugly flowers ( and I know they bloomed a lot like that in Taiwan) are nearly never pictured, so the general thinking of most people is that "hangianum is a beautiful species".

Hien is right for the 3), only add China pot plant market, and that's done. 

Most growers in Viet Nam are incredibly bad. I cannot name them growers. 

The hangianum are stored in fern root, the samed fern root will be used for 4-5 years ( not joking). Many plants die of anthracnose, they never treat with fungicides ( they do not know what it is, if the plant die it is because of "too much water"), they replenish all the time with plants. 

About the artificial propagation, yes, it will lower the request for the hobby market, for most species. Only 2 are problematic, huonglanae and hangianum. Those two species bloom every 2-4 years usually, they are slow growing. If one plant bloom from the wild within a couple of months ( like the selected ones from Taiwan), it is likely to take another 4 years to have a mature growth. So there will always be a demand from breeders to get wild collected plants of those two species.

There are divisions offered of the selected clones from Taiwan, I really wonder how they can do. I have seen one peculiar plant in bloom last year, fresh from the wild. It has been pictured on a taiwanese website. When I have seen that plant, it was a single growth blooming. Yet, two "divisions" have been sold. Guess who's cheating.

For the japanese company, the story ( Javeco) is more complicated. The Japaneses were expecting to get flasks of rare species from Viet Nam, it was a partnership with Mitsubishi (sponsor), and Vegitexco, a state-owned company. Some officials stopped that company from exporting, because some Vietnamese were planning to use it to export wild plants with CITES. They actually used the collecting permits granted by the government to collect massive quantities of paphiopedilum without any trouble from the police, and ship them to China. 

Furthermore, the way they grew their plants was not proper. One has to come to Viet Nam (North, there are some excellent growers in the south) to realize how badly the people grow their plants. One cannot even call it "growing". 

The plants are full of pests and diseases, and for the 'cheap' plants, like tranlienianum (collected in masses for the pot plant) and helenae, they are just lay down on the ground, and watered like that, more or less bare root. After a while, all the plants become infected, and they use a brush to remove those plants and put the new ones at the same place. I would think that about 80% of all the paphs that are collected die that way in Viet Nam

Paphiopedilum vietnamense is another story. There are still 2 colonies, but the locals want crazy prices to go and collected. They have been cheated in the past, as the first vietnamense were sold to Hanoi dealers for US$5 a kilo. Then they become upset, and as it is the 'rule' in Viet Nam, they started to ask more, and more. Now, the dealers in Hanoi can get 1000 plants from the wild if they want, but at 20$ a plant, so no one does this. The plants are quite protected by those crazy prices. All the others species are still available in huge, huge quantities. So huge that mose sellers sell by 20kg boxes of each species.

And never forget one thing, the hobby market maybe tampers with wild populations, but the pot-plant market currently destroys many more plants than the connoissor's market.

The story is the same as kovachii actually, but there is a general misinterpretation of the whole kovachii story. Most of the kovachii, like the hangianum, went to the local market for pot-plant 'nice flowers'. There are some stocks as far as I know, one in Taiwan ( about 200 plants), and three in South America, two huge stocks made by Ecuadorean nursery and Peruvian nursery, because they though they had a beautiful huge market later. Crazy people... In Europe, absolutely no "huge stocks". I have to know about that. I know only 3 people who have blooming size wild collected kovachii in Europe, a few plants each ( 2-3). I tried to locate some mature plants a couple years ago, everything was available in Europe, including wentworthianum, zieckianum, multigrowth sanderianum from the wild. But no kovachii blooming size. So it is not a matter of 'trust' that no one came up to offer me those plants, just that they were not where they were expected by many people to be.

The real sequel of the kovachii story is that there is NO DEMAND from hobbyists for many wild collected plants, because, there are not that many orchid hobbyists, that's as simple as that. In Europe, maybe 100 hobbyists want to get kovachii, in the USA, let's say 200. There is no market for large quantities, except for pot-plant. Some people want to select high quality kovachii, so they will import a batch. Other than that...


About CITES and flasks of hangianum or other new species. The USA ruled that the parent plants must be legal to own. The CITES did it on one 'standing commitee' occurence, if I remember well. Anyway, one government asked me to study that and see if paphiopedilum flasks from the new species are forbidden or allowed under CITES regulations. I came up with the following: According to CITES regulations, paph hangianum and other new species flasks are completely legal, no matter if the parents are collected in a national park or otherwise.

The CITES people that edited the appendixes made a deadly mistake:

http://www.cites.org/eng/app/appendices.shtml

If you look carefully, on top of the Appendix I Paphiopedilu and Phragmipedium
" For all of the following Appendix-I species, seedling or tissue cultures obtained in vitro, in solid or liquid media, transported in sterile containers are not subject to the provisions of the Convention)"

You have a flask of paphiopedilum hangianum in front of you. You want to check if there is anything related to CITES matter. You open the appendix to check if paphiopedilum hangianum is Appendix I, Appendix II, or free trade. You read the above sentence in the core text of the appendix ( no mention of "artificial propagated", just "seedling or tissue culture obtained in vitro"). You close the CITES website, all the garbage about artificial propagation or otherwise is USELESS, because that flask is not 'subject to the provisions of the Convention'.

I am sure that law enforcement officers can try to seize flasks of hangianum, but I think that in front of a court, there is little to no risks for the seller. If some people were more careful when writing text, they would NEVER have put such a stupid sentence in the Appendix. That single sentence cancels all CITES related matter for all Paphiopedilum flasks.


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## KyushuCalanthe (Feb 5, 2008)

Wow Sanderianum, nice to hear the news from ground zero. Things never are as they seem unless you get to see the real dirt. Thanks for a view. The bottom line is that eventually any species that is coveted or consider such by collectors will be a goner from the wild in just a few decades...


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## swamprad (Feb 5, 2008)

Very interesting and informative post, Sanderianum.


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## NYEric (Feb 5, 2008)

Wow 1/200 i'm so exclusive!  
I think he may underestimate the market but thanx for the valuable info.


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## Hien (Feb 8, 2008)

Hi Sanderianum
I read your post with absolute fascination.
Your knowledge about the local (as Eric said Ground zero) is immense and updated. All of what you said matches what I read in vietnamese websites, from low price to harvest of wild plants for new year celebration. 
One thing we have to keep in mind is that we should not condemn the vietnameses for doing so for new year celebration, after all, we do chop down trees and sell them in malls parking lots all over the USA at Christmas, the only different is we have some "tree farms". We should not be too proud of that fact, we doing it that way because the price is right. If anyone think otherwise, just visit Washington state, and check out those balder than the monks' shave heads mountains and see how we actually protect our national treasures.
Thank you for the post, it gives me accurate understanding of what happen in Taiwan and Europe.
I just wish, "my wishful thinking", that Vietnam becomes more advance in growing orchid, about flasking & artificial propagation, and less corruption in business & government dealing, and the government can devise a program to help the poor peoples who live near the forest harvesting plants in a sustainable fashion.


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## rdlsreno (Feb 8, 2008)

Excellent!!!

Ramon


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## DavidH (Feb 9, 2008)

Sanderianum, question for you after your excellent reply. It is my understanding that CITES does not prohibit wild collecting that occurs within a country, only the exportation of those plants protected under CITES to places outside that country. Do you concur?


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## jacamarorchids (Feb 12, 2008)

"It is my understanding that CITES does not prohibit wild collecting that occurs within a country, only the exportation of those plants protected under CITES to places outside that country."

True CITES is the *C*onvention for the *I*nternational *T*rade of *E*ndangered *S*pecies. it only covers international trade


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## Roth (Feb 13, 2008)

jacamarorchids said:


> "It is my understanding that CITES does not prohibit wild collecting that occurs within a country, only the exportation of those plants protected under CITES to places outside that country."
> 
> True CITES is the *C*onvention for the *I*nternational *T*rade of *E*ndangered *S*pecies. it only covers international trade



Correct, however, the countries that are members of the CITES must have local laws to implement and enforce the dispositions of the CITES. 

Therefore, if a country does not prohibits the collection of app I plants let's say, it can be banned from CITES ("recommendation for trade suspension on www.cites.org"). 

So, pretty much all countries have laws to ban the trade and hunting of App I species, and control the collecting of App II species, just to stay as active members of the CITES. Being banned from CITES trade can be a huge problem, because it involves many products regulated by CITES in a way or another ( crocodile skin bags, ivory, some timbers, and so on), so it can have a huge impact on a country financials.

Practically, it is very rarely enforced in most countries, and wild collected plants are usually freely available on the roadside ( including Mexico, French Guyane, Brazil, and even USA) with little to no repressive action.


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## Gcroz (Feb 13, 2008)

Does anyone know which congressional reps have oversight on CITES? Perhaps it's time for a sternly worded letter. LOL


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## NYEric (Feb 15, 2008)

http://www.orchids.com.tw/
I almost shat when I saw the hybrids listed here!


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## goldenrose (Feb 15, 2008)

NYEric said:


> http://www.orchids.com.tw/
> I almost shat when I saw the hybrids listed here!


:drool::drool::drool:


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