cites appendix 1

[baodai]

i think it's because it pre-dates the enactment of cites

Brian,
I think AOS juding paph emersonii, I think paph emersonii was discorvered of the year 1986 and CITES formed on 1 July 1975 CITES
also paph vietnamese discorvered year 1999
Will AOS jude paph helenae (discorvered 1996)? ( I can't complain about this one yet untill they jude this one
Now, can someone explain to me why AOS support illegal import paph from Vietnam?

A quote from Craig Hoover
Chief, Branch of Operations
USFWS Division of Management Authority"

"It is my understanding that the Vietnamese species to which you referred has been denied import because the Vietnamese government has indicated that the species has never been lawfully exported from Vietnam."
regards,
BD

 

[s1214215]

Hi BD

You are right with the quote. Sadly, and I think we both know it, you can not stop the illegal trade over borders. I live in Bangkok. I visit the Weekend Markets here each week, and now and then see Vietnamese species on sale. Its clear that they come from the jungle. I have asked the sellers where they got them, and they say sent from Vietnam.

We are not going to stop this trade by prohibiting export of flasks. If we can prove the parents of flasks are A-line plants in flask, then perhaps that deals with one issue.. But we are not going to stop a peasant farmer ripping plants from the forests to feed his family, and then selling to the smuggler.

To me this arguement borders on the silly. I dont care who sells the flasks. If plants can be approved as propagation stock and used for seed, then use that to make flasks. To me, propagation in part reduces the want to illegally export to wealthier nations. It doesnt stop the markets in poorer ones though like Thailand, China etc which have a voracious appetite for collected plants. I have travelled a lot in Asia and seen many examples of this.

My concern is we will wail until the cows come home over the export of propagated plants (in flask or not) and wake to see the jungles stripped bare. Then what will we have? Theres no easy fix, but I dont see banning exports as a fix.

Brett

 

[likespaphs]

now i understand

but i believe with vietnamese and helenae, enough were bred in plant rescue centers to release. well, at first (which, i think, is why Antec would offer the certificates) but then there were enough around that they {the powers that be} just sorta gave up and now let most in.
then again, i could be wrong.....

 

[cnycharles]

glad I asked a question, I got lots of answers!

 

[gonewild]

You need to take care when you read the CITES regulations and you need to be aware of the Lacey Act.

If you read the regulations trying to find a way around the rules you will get into trouble. I f you read the regulations looking for a way to follow the rules it is simple. Most people are trying to find a way to do something they know is not allowed and try to find loopholes.

When it comes to the issue about China claiming they have Vietnam species no one knows if the actually do or not. Just because China issues CITES papers on the species or exports flasks does not make the plants completely legal. If they do issue official CITES papers then that might satisfy CITES. BUT......

The Lacey Act requires that you have knowledge about the accuracy of the legality of any wildlife or plant species you transport across state or international borders. It is your responsibility to know positive that the source of the plants is legal. The Lacey Act makes ignorance a crime.
The Lacey Act is USA law and the importer is subject to it.

When it comes to the China/Vietnam species no one can be sure.
When Craig Hoover says Vietnam has requested that their species be considered contraband you should read that as "don't do it".

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

Baodai- With CITES, its the decision back in 1990 to make ALL paph and phrag species Appendix 1 plants. (Previously, only druryi was App 1.) Since P. emersonii was described and imported in 1986, its a cleared plant. I'm sure that "huonglanae", being accepted as emersonii, can get in also...as long as its labelled emersonii. As for the post 1990 Vietnamese paphs, helenae and vietnamense were allowed in as propagations from a plant rescue center. Despite the wording requiring documentation, once these plants are in, they are in. So, FWIW, vietnamense and helenae can join the list of OK paphs.

 

[s1214215]

Baodai- With CITES, its the decision back in 1990 to make ALL paph and phrag species Appendix 1 plants. (Previously, only druryi was App 1.) Since P. emersonii was described and imported in 1986, its a cleared plant. I'm sure that "huonglanae", being accepted as emersonii, can get in also...as long as its labelled emersonii. As for the post 1990 Vietnamese paphs, helenae and vietnamense were allowed in as propagations from a plant rescue center. Despite the wording requiring documentation, once these plants are in, they are in. So, FWIW, vietnamense and helenae can join the list of OK paphs.

I have emailed F&W about these all the Vietnamese species, and those in China. Lets see how they reply.

Brett

 

[gonewild]

Despite the wording requiring documentation, once these plants are in, they are in. So, FWIW, vietnamense and helenae can join the list of OK paphs.

The plants that are here are legal. But I don't think that just because some plants were legalized once here, that that puts the species on the OK list for importation.

 

[Scooby5757]

When it comes to the issue about China claiming they have Vietnam species no one knows if the actually do or not. Just because China issues CITES papers on the species or exports flasks does not make the plants completely legal. If they do issue official CITES papers then that might satisfy CITES. BUT......

So back in November down at the paph conference/forum/symposium, Holger Perner made it clear that he had acquired these "vietnamese" species in China, has been propagating them, and if he had known earlier that he was coming to speak, that he might even had the paperwork prepared to bring some. Anyone who was also there and can clarify if I mis-remember, please chime in.

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

You are 100% correct in what you just said. I didn't chime in earlier as I couldn't recall Holger's name. Yes, he said that he needed a number of months to get the correct paperwork and he said he will be bringing in just about everything that we can't get here. If I recall, I believe that he stated that he was comming back to the U.S. for one of the Santa Barbara events and would be bringing them with him. I don't think he said which Santa Barbara event, but it is suppose to be this year.

 

[Dido]

In Europe are too sopme sellers offering
plants that imported to europe by perner, he will be in 14 Days at the show in Dresden. But he has not many cyps left for sell mainly flavum and some of his tibeticum with that big size, everything else is nearly sold out.
He imported some species legal to europe about his company who breads plants and have a licence for breading in china and for export.

 

[baodai]

Baodai- With CITES, its the decision back in 1990 to make ALL paph and phrag species Appendix 1 plants. (Previously, only druryi was App 1.) Since P. emersonii was described and imported in 1986, its a cleared plant. I'm sure that "huonglanae", being accepted as emersonii, can get in also...as long as its labelled emersonii. As for the post 1990 Vietnamese paphs, helenae and vietnamense were allowed in as propagations from a plant rescue center. Despite the wording requiring documentation, once these plants are in, they are in. So, FWIW, vietnamense and helenae can join the list of OK paphs.

Hi Eric,
let's read the quote from Craig Hoover again:
"It is my understanding that the Vietnamese species to which you referred has been denied import because the Vietnamese government has indicated that the species has never been lawfully exported from Vietnam."
Vietnamese government has indicated that the species has never been lawfully exporteed from Vietnam. So,
paph Vietnamese and helenae can't be legal doesn't matter where in the world it would be.
The way i translate what you are saying is that: It is ok to legalize these 2 paphs as long as it came from rescue center, regardless what Vietnamese goverment said ?? Another word, if these 2 plants is outside of Vietnamese's land, Anybody can write up some legal papers and called that legal. (if that is the case, why do we need CITES ??)
Please, clarify of what you meant
regards,
BD

 

[cnycharles]

isn't it the case where vietnam won't pay to have the plants shipped back to them, so once someone has tried to smuggle them in here to the u.s. and then caught, they end up going to a rescue center. I guess they could get tossed into the trash, but then that wouldn't really be helping the species at all so if they do get into circulation by certain propagators being allowed to grow and disseminate them, then what could be a problem? if this is the case and vietnam won't pay for sending them back to vietnam or whatever the deal is, it isn't like someone just made a random ruling to make them legal, they just can't back to their origin country.

this is sort of like a tempest in a teapot; why doesn't vietnam just tax the heck out of exporting things from their country and make money from it? I can't really understand why they haven't just set up a system to now allow things to be propagated and sold from their country. if it's obvious that smugglers are taking things out, they could nip some of this by making things available themselves. if they are ending up all over the place (unfortunately) from illegal trade, make it legal and tax/regulate it

 

[baodai]

cnycharles,
So, why do we need CITES? just let everyone sell plants, animals like it used to be. The countries whom recieve these illegal plants or aminals can legalize for their own benefit anytime they want to anyway !!! it doesn't matter what the goverment of the plants or aminals say anyway, and why the fws needs plant division, they will legal these illegal plants anyway.
My second comment: if they fws (or whatever department that responsible for plant) legal paph vietnamese, why don't they legal paph hang or other paphs, I'm sure they have other illegal paph at rescue center
Regards,
BD

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

The reason for why they are legal is that the confiscated plants were offered back to the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese refused to take them back (or maybe simply failed to reply to USFW). Once that happened, they were sent to a "plant rescue center"- the NY Botanical Garden in the Bronx. The Wellensteins (Antec) were offered the opportunity to try to propagate these plants, which they did by division. Once these divisions flowered, they could then be pollinated, flasked, and the flasked seedlings legitimately sold. Only the flasked seedlings, and they are legal only because Vietnam refused repatriation. Yes, technically, only these plants are legal...all other helenae's and vietnamense's are illegal. However, technically, all delenatii descended from the wild plants discovered in the 90's in Vietnam are also illegal. So, all those "dunkel" plants, and maybe the albums, are also illegal....only the line bred plants from the Vacherot-Lecoufle ancestors are legal. However, its obviously too much of a hassle to enforce the laws at this point...and to what end? Once the Antec plants became OK, vietnamense (or more specifically, Ho Chi Minh) became available everywhere. Bob Wellenstein even posted a rather annoyed note here claiming that he was not responsible for most of the plants in the trade. So, for practicality purposes, once a batch becomes fully legal, for better or worse, the rest of the plants are practically (though not technically) legal.

 

[Rick]

isn't it the case where vietnam won't pay to have the plants shipped back to them, so once someone has tried to smuggle them in here to the u.s. and then caught, they end up going to a rescue center. I guess they could get tossed into the trash, but then that wouldn't really be helping the species at all so if they do get into circulation by certain propagators being allowed to grow and disseminate them, then what could be a problem? if this is the case and vietnam won't pay for sending them back to vietnam or whatever the deal is, it isn't like someone just made a random ruling to make them legal, they just can't back to their origin country.

this is sort of like a tempest in a teapot; why doesn't vietnam just tax the heck out of exporting things from their country and make money from it? I can't really understand why they haven't just set up a system to now allow things to be propagated and sold from their country. if it's obvious that smugglers are taking things out, they could nip some of this by making things available themselves. if they are ending up all over the place (unfortunately) from illegal trade, make it legal and tax/regulate it

Once at the handful of "non-commercial" rescue centers they do not go back to the origin country. At least the couple of rescue centers I know of make an effort to keep them alive, and probably end up placing them in other "non-commercial" enterprises (like botanical gardens). Unfortunately a ton of non T&E things like hybrid phals used to end up being confiscated too and clog up space/resources at the rescue centers making it harder to keep the endangered species alive.

The purpose of CITES is to disrupt the commercial aspect of endangered organism commerce. If that conserves species in the wild that's a secondary benefit. I think the US in general understands that most developing countries have little means or interest in conserving their environment, but doesn't want their blood on their hands (especially if a $ is not to be made at this end). It's not much different from the drug trade in this regards.

Zoos/Aquariums are able to work out deals to move endangered species around in cooperation with CITES. To this end there is a significant number of these animals now moved out of the "research/conservation" arena into the private pet trade. The production rate was too much for zoos to trade/loan without overwhelming their resources.

The orchid world is in its infancy for developing programs like this, but in the last few years we've seen the release of P vietnamense, and Phrag kovachii. Rumor has it that other Vietnamese species are about to come out (legally).

It seems that now that there is a regular source of vietnamense and kovachii that the furor of "GOT TO HAVE IT" has died down considerably?????

Maybe CITES is just an excuse to artificially keep the prices high???

 

[s1214215]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, many developing countries dont give a care for CITES. The trade in plants is free as a bird in China, but CITES only comes up when someone tries to export. I live 10 mnutes from an illegal plant market, and I see thousands of plants peddled there and at JJ market each week along with the legal plants. CITES are well aware of it, but cant touch them due to corrupt politicians, the police and military. A governor in one Thai state is reputed to be fully behind plant collection, but is untouchable.

I see Vietnamese species there regularly. I recently saw Paph. tranlienum at $4 a plant at a local market. Orchids from Laos are regularly brought in. The govt there does nothing. I observe what species I see each week at the markets, and they are on Ebay a week later from Thai sellers (supposedly with CITES for some).

The internal Chinese market and SE Asian markets are voracious and in general CITES can do little. Its time to replace it, and put something in place designed for plants. Something that also promotes healthy trade through propagation, and also gives incentives to governments in developing nations a reason to preserve wild stocks.

However, given that many developing nation governments have issues of corrruption, and propagation is week in these countries due to the low prices of collected plants, you wont see much more than a continuation of the ineffectual old toothless tiger, CITES for some time.

Kind of sad as I l know people in CITES and they care, but even they admit they cant do much about some things.

Now I think this threads gotten a little off topic... so on the thaianum note, we will know soon how things will pan out with me shipping to the USA.

 

[NYEric]

The CITES and and enforcement issue is a confused spagetti bowl of conflict. There are plants that were brought into this country with documents from the country of origin that were seized as illegal and then distributed through other means! Hopefully the policies in this country will be revisited and updated to have a more realistic means of enforcing the intent of the act and actually protect species that we are losing daily in the wild!!!

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

CITES is strictly for international trade...it does nothing to protect plants from collection within their borders.

 

[s1214215]

Ah.. My error. Thanks Eric.

The thing we se a lot of in Thailand is plants brought in from Cambodia, Laos, Burma, China, etc and redistributed out of here. From obsevations hypothosise this place is a hub for plant trafficking as much as it is for sex/people trafficking.

The problem is many people involved in the trade are high up and cant be touched.

Brett