Wildlife Smuggling in Thailand: A Matter of Convenience
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Its all very sad, really.
We can all do our part by not buying jungle collected paphs.
We can all do our part by not buying jungle collected paphs.
It is very sad, but all good people stopping buying jungle collected plants won't stop poaching.
H
Howzat
Guest
Mick, thanks for giving an insight of wildlife (animal) smugling. It is very sad.
Anything that reduces the demand will eventually lower the supply. Every little bit helps.
Well none of this is a surprise. I lived in Thailand for over 6 years. I read recently it was catagorised by the World Bank as the 6th most corrupt country in the world, with a comment you would be safer doing business in Uganda (was in The Nation paper).
I lived around the corner from Jatujak, and went there weekling. I can say for sure you see many endangered species there, animals and plants. I saw corbras, meerkats, Ringtail possums, Australian sourced coral -its all made known to you if people see you as a local after a bit and some display is blatant. A massive plant market runs mid week and has illegal jungle plants from Burma, China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand in huge quantities and openly sold. You often see the police mooching around the stalls and buying them. It is rumoured stalls have military protection, but I have no evidence of that.
None of this will stop when corruption is a tolerated part of life. A few groups and small part of society in Thailand give a stuff about the flora and fauna, but its a struggle when most people just keep heads down and dont want to know or those who complain about corruption, but engage in it daily as part of life.
Its a no win game in Thailand with an estimated 1/3 GDP build on prostitution, world centre of prostitution and major hub in people, animal and plant trafficking. Nothings going to change there until more people and government change.
Sad though in the Thai orchid world as a lot of orchidists do try to flask and propagate legally, but then the illegal plants are so cheap and big.. What are the phlebians going to buy???? Why by a seedling at twice the price of a small to large specimen. Also a percentage of nurseries buy jungle plants to pass as propagated.
I thorougly believe that hobbyists must preserve what we have as none of this will stop until its gone. You cant stop a peasant pulling a plant from a tree to feed his family. Sure the governments can stop the middle and end men smugglers, but I dont see much happening on that front. I was told by an official that a governor of a Thai province was deeply involved so they couldnt touch him.
Swapping seed around the world and getting as much into propagation as we can is so vital as a result. Sorry if this turned into a bit of a rant, but I get peeved off we I see that nothing is or can be done in most countries, yet we who would legally import and propagate plants get stonewalled.
Brett
I lived around the corner from Jatujak, and went there weekling. I can say for sure you see many endangered species there, animals and plants. I saw corbras, meerkats, Ringtail possums, Australian sourced coral -its all made known to you if people see you as a local after a bit and some display is blatant. A massive plant market runs mid week and has illegal jungle plants from Burma, China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand in huge quantities and openly sold. You often see the police mooching around the stalls and buying them. It is rumoured stalls have military protection, but I have no evidence of that.
None of this will stop when corruption is a tolerated part of life. A few groups and small part of society in Thailand give a stuff about the flora and fauna, but its a struggle when most people just keep heads down and dont want to know or those who complain about corruption, but engage in it daily as part of life.
Its a no win game in Thailand with an estimated 1/3 GDP build on prostitution, world centre of prostitution and major hub in people, animal and plant trafficking. Nothings going to change there until more people and government change.
Sad though in the Thai orchid world as a lot of orchidists do try to flask and propagate legally, but then the illegal plants are so cheap and big.. What are the phlebians going to buy???? Why by a seedling at twice the price of a small to large specimen. Also a percentage of nurseries buy jungle plants to pass as propagated.
I thorougly believe that hobbyists must preserve what we have as none of this will stop until its gone. You cant stop a peasant pulling a plant from a tree to feed his family. Sure the governments can stop the middle and end men smugglers, but I dont see much happening on that front. I was told by an official that a governor of a Thai province was deeply involved so they couldnt touch him.
Swapping seed around the world and getting as much into propagation as we can is so vital as a result. Sorry if this turned into a bit of a rant, but I get peeved off we I see that nothing is or can be done in most countries, yet we who would legally import and propagate plants get stonewalled.
Brett
Sad, plus we have laws which restrict supervisable trade! 
tocarmar
Well-Known Member
It is unfortunate that this happens all over the world.. It will never stop!! There are new species beign discovered....http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/tiny-chameleons/
everything will be exploited ie endangered, extinct.. We can only do so much to save what we can.. We (people) will eventually destoy everything..!! My 2 cents worth!!!!!!!!!!!!!
everything will be exploited ie endangered, extinct.. We can only do so much to save what we can.. We (people) will eventually destoy everything..!! My 2 cents worth!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stone
Well-Known Member
It just makes me sick to death when I'm reminded of the narrow minded and ''Dark Ages'' mentality of- Lets be frank- The Chinese and some other Asian countries with regard to these so called natural remendies. It's about time their governents take some damn resposibility and start educating their populations. The trouble is most of them are probably users and believers themselves! For God's sake, Some Koreans are torturing dogs before killing them in the belief that it makes the meat more tender!! The Chinese tapping a bear's gall bladder for god knows what. Just the other day a Chinese chef on TV prepared a fish by scaling and deep frying it by holding it by the head while it was still alive!!! and his customers delighted in this cruelty. What the hell is going on with these people!!!
The jewel orchids market is about a couple tons a year for medicinal plants in China, but it is way under the needs, which would be some dozen tons a year.
Imagine one metric ton of anoectochilus, how many millions plants. That's why we do not see them anymore from China to Thailand in the wild, just few plants for sightseeing, but in 1996 when I saw jewel orchids in Vietnam, there used to be carpets of them.
Imagine one metric ton of anoectochilus, how many millions plants. That's why we do not see them anymore from China to Thailand in the wild, just few plants for sightseeing, but in 1996 when I saw jewel orchids in Vietnam, there used to be carpets of them.
Unfortunately, it will go on and on, no matter what laws are adopted and how stringently they are applied. We can all say ''It would be nice if...'' Or ''we should adopt better regulations for...'' But in the real world, animals, plants and people are a commodity to be used and abused by those who have the money and the will to pay for anything illegal and no ethical values. I think the only hope for the future is harvesting enough plants and animals of endangered species to protect them in botanical gardens and zoos or even in frozen banks of embryos. With the population still rising there's virtually no hope for the self sustaining natural world, and maybe not even for ourselves. Our sense of outrage is very much understandable, but it only delays the inevitable. It hurts me no end to say this, but again, let's save what we can, where we can and while we can. Maybe we will need a space ark like in the movie ''Silent Running''. Think about it: Despite all the laws and regulations adopted since, has anything really changed since that movie came out in the 70s?
It goes way beyond money and value. In the real world it is "predator and prey". Humans are both predators and prey but more than anything they are "consumers" or "harvesters". Humans are designed to consume everything they can so they grow stronger. It takes a lot of consumption to sustain the human "ego" And no written law can overcome the law of nature. EVER!
That is probably the only hope but by doing this only a select few humans have the benefit of the gardens and zoos. So isn't that just a different form of what is already happening?
And when there is nothing left here and someone opens the frozen banks of species what do you think they will do with those species?.... They will likely eat them.
Our sense of outrage is very much understandable, but it only delays the inevitable. It hurts me no end to say this, but again, let's save what we can, where we can and while we can. Maybe we will need a space ark like in the movie ''Silent Running''. Think about it: Despite all the laws and regulations adopted since, has anything really changed since that movie came out in the 70s?
Nothing will ever change. You can't save an ARC of species to take to a new world and dump on them. If we move our species to a new environment we only spread our plague.
Our best option is to enjoy the species we have while we have them and except the fact that just like all individuals have a short life span so do all species as a group.
I wasn't thinking of moving an arc to another world. But more as moving it away from us. Deep in space where we couldn't screw with it. Would be easy to do and rather cheap. Seeds and embryos don't take much space and you could pack a lot in a cryonogically maintained automatic spacecraft. With an ion engine, it could be sent on the edge of the Solar System and wait there until our descendants really understand what a treasure we had. This still may not work but if we send enough of these arcs out there some or all could survive for thousands of years. Not much energy needed since space is very, very cold.
I am an optimist and I believe someday, quite possibly a long time from now, humanity will grow up and could retrieve these arcs to restore our world. :noangel:
And you think the wildlife poachers would not find it there?
Have ionic engines gotten cheap now?
And they will do what with it? ...... Sell it like because of it's value? It will be found by a salvage company.
And when they crash into another planets environment and destroy the native life we will have done what humans are good for. :sob:
But when humanity does grow up they will already have their perfect world and not want to bring back the disastrous history of primitive humanity.
Lance!
You probably won't like my sci-fi book!
Actually I will like it. Especially if I can use one of you ionic engines in my species hunting rig. Assuming it is a green machine and won't pollute space.
:drool:
I'm way beyond ion engines and you'll have millions of planets to hunt species on. And no pollution problem whatsoever. By the way, ion engines already exist and are flying in space now.
I'm way beyond ion engines and you'll have millions of planets to hunt species on. And no pollution problem whatsoever. By the way, ion engines already exist and are flying in space now.
How much are ions per gallon now?
They're very cheap by rocket fuels standard. These thrusters have been used for decades, by the Russians first, to lift low altitude satellite to higher orbits. It's in fact a form of electric propulsion. Heavy ions are electrically charged to move at very high speed then are ejected from the engine. The electricity comes from solar panels. Each ion ejected doesn't accelerate the vehicle much but there are millions of them and the thrust, for a deep space mission can last for several months and even years. By then, the speed of the spacecraft can be several times that achieved by conventional rockets. NASA is actually considering ion thrusters to lift the ISS out of atmospheric drag at one twentieth the cost of rocket fuel.
Such a vehicle if designed to carry frozen seeds and embryos for safekeeping at the edge of the Solar System would probably cost in the tens of millions of dollars and most of the cost would be for the conventional launcher. Ion engines have too weak a thrust to launch from earth on their own. Their domain is strictly in space. Equiped with navigational computers they would need no air, no water and no coolant since space is already extremely cold once passed the orbit of Jupiter. There would be no need for human control for most of the voyage. Just a few check up every few years to make sure the craft is on course and slow it down eventually to keep it from flying out the Solar System.
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