One of the sources citing political involvement was senior CITES. A particular provincial governor was named as being a major controller and untouchable.
Honestly I have heard this kind of legend before, and I know from many cases, including Thailand, that it is not true...
The second problem is that no one on the enforcement side knows how to identify wild plants, or what they are.
The third problem, the fines are too low, so that's just a kind of tax. Get caught today, make profit tomorrow for most of those people.
You sound like a lot of hypocritical SE Asian well to do/foreigners gone native that like to accuse foreigners here or someone you dont like as whoremongers when their points of view dont match yours. Not all people here live in gogo bars or whorehouse, drop that reference please.
No, for the whoremonger ( and cocain), that was absolutely true unfortunately.
Let me tell the story. As a customs expert, I went to Geneva to meet Ger van Vliet, the CITES general director at that time.
He showed me some videos from Jatujak, and another wild collected orchid market close to Chiang Mai, with several foreign people dealing in massive quantities.
The investigation went under way, and they asked the WWF to help. I was going to Thailand a couple of months later, so I told him I would meet with those WWF (and one Greenpeace people too...). So did I, and my friend Krairit Vejvarut told me that there was no risk they would find anything.
In the evening he brought me to a local style of Nana plaza, those guys were here with several jungle orchid sellers drinking and choosing bar girls. You can ask a ladyboy selling orchids from Malaysia at Jatujak...
Some months later, they reported that there was nothing to report, end of the story.
In the raptor story, some people from the Emirates invited CITES and WWF expert for a tour. Deluxe, and more deluxe journey. Afterwards, all the wild raptors became captive bred, nothing to say, nothing to see...
I do completely agree on this point.. Some plants need individual care and requirements. Perhaps thats why some people can grow some plants well.
Indeed, but in many cases it's by luck. And the next grower who ll get that plant maybe will not follow. The best sangii I have ever seen in my life, maybe 20 growths 4 years from a single jungle growth, was growing in living forest moss in France.
You will have to be a very well travelled individual to see all the plants in the collections around the world Roth. I only lay claim to what I have seen.
I did indeed see many collections... Not all the plants around the world, but I know the source of pretty much everything that comes from Asia, and pretty much everything worth of interest in paphs. That's why I know the anitum in Taiwan have been collected 3 years ago, I know even the collector, the way it has been exported, the way it has been imported ( at that time through Kaoshiung by cargo, but shortly afterwards there has been a big scandal and the network collapsed here), and who wholesaled them in Taiwan. I know too that a thousand anitum have been imported 3 years ago, and less than 200 were still alive in february, bad condition, starting to die.
Agreed, the makets at JJ have been around along time. I guess so have the stalls in Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma and Malaysia that I have seen. Point is, allow the corrupt and peasants to strip the forests, or free up flasked plants world wide. We arent going to win on preservation in the long run. Save what we can I say.
That's my point too. We cannot imagine saving every species, this will be impossible. But we have to accept that, at the end, in some years, decades or centuries, most species will be extinct.
I was optimistic 15 years ago, made a lot of seedlings, distributed a lot of plants. I started to be pessimistic when I realized pretty much all had died.
Take again the adductum from Antec ( and I know exactly from where the original plants came). They released over 200 flasks of 30 seedlings. That's 6000. NONE is still with us today.
Take wentworthianum. 4000 wild plants, less than 50 in collections, 2 only from the 80's import ( one at Fox Valley, the other one belonging to Jo Levy, that's all period), the remaining from the 90's onwards.
Let's assume they are propagated. 6000 seedlings in the next 20 years. Let's say it is easier to grow than adductum (it's not.) and 500 will reach blooming size as healthy, gorgeous plants (they won't, believe me).
When the owners of those plants will die, and they will. Those 50 original plants will be grown by other people. Add the 500 others from seed, in 20 years,
From experience, 50 survived out of 4000. Out of 550 in 20 years, 8 will be alive 10 years later.
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