Paph. gigantifolium & CITES

[goldenrose]

For those that subscribe to Orchid Digest, you've read this but for those that don't subcribe here goes:
"For the last 9 years, slipper orchid growers were under the impression that Paph. gigantifolium could be legally grown in the USA. Now it appears that the Feds have decided that this is not the case, that the original plants imported with CITES had not been artificially propagated. They have reversed themseves & declared the original permits invalid. Thus those plants & their hybrids as well as additional plants of the species propagated from the original importation are all now "illegal". Plants have been confiscated from one important retailer. What to do if you bought & own some of these? The Feds have said that they will not go after amateur hobbyists, so if you have no intent to sell & breed with these plants & are a hobbyist there is probably no cause for alarm. At least for now!"
I guess this shouldn't surprise us but this just blows my mind!
1. You mean to tell me that 9 years ago they couldn't tell the difference between jungle collected plants & artifically propagated?
2. How can they be sure now?
3. How many of you would like go back 9 years & fix a screw up in this way?

So what do you think?

 

[Candace]

I read that Rose and thought what a fiasco. Once the genie is let out of the bottle, you can't go back 9 years later and try to shove it back in.

 

[Rick]

I guess you are talking about Sam at Orchid Inn having his plants confiscated, and Sam sold many seedlings from his breeding.

Glenn Decker also had seedlings for sale, but I don't know if Glenn has had CITES issues with his plants.

So you bring up good points that there are now a lot of seed raised plants in collections that were (and should be) considered legal at time of purchase, that are questionable now.

Seems like the horses are out of the barn now.

Another question is what will happen to the confiscated plants, and how does this help conservation of the species?

 

[John M]

This is extreme. It seems like a good case of more arrogant government stupidity. I really feel sorry for Sam. It wasn't that long ago that the concept of government telling people what kinds of flowers they were allowed to grow, was impossible to imagine. Yet, here we are......the flower police are alive and well and being paid with tax dollars. This is just crazy and it's about time that some good sense got knocked into the authorities to stop this madness. People like Sam have done more for the cause of conservation and preservation of species than any government agency!

 

[Hera]

Makes you wonder who stood to benefit from such a stupid reversal. I'm always suspicious of glaringly mindless policy. Someone out there is reaping the benefit of someone elses loss.

 

[SlipperFan]

I read that, also. I really don't know how it can possibly be enforced. Is there a "jury of peers" that would convict anyone???

 

[Roth]

Some history here...

Jason Ong ordered from Au Yong, who passed away some weeks ago, some hudnreds sanderianum plants and some gigantifolium. At that time he choosed the plants from Au Yong nursery, obviously cultivated for some years and in pristine condition.

Au Yong shipped then to him fresh jungle plants, as it was his habit - I know as I have been through that some years ago as well. But the importer has to recover his money, especially at 100-150USD/plant of sand, 300 plant make for 30.000USD...

Couple of months after, the plants were seized by the FWS on the basis that they were not artificially propagated, which was anyway obvious. Apparently at that time the FWS seized gigantifolium plants, but did not invalidate the gigantifolium CITES import permit, as they did for the sanderianum. Gigantifolium dyak warrior, to the best of my knowledge, has been seized at that time but the flasks were in the lab already, and pollen stored.

The gigantifolium plants occured as a trade between Au Yong and a Surabaya grower- in Indonesia, exchanging sands for gigantifolium. Gigantifolium being a post-CITES species, it was obvious that thoses plants were not legal, if we follow the regulations. Now, more interesting is that Au Yong got flasks too of thoses gigantifolium, with phyto from Indonesia. Yet Indonesia Governement denies that thoses could be legit, but claims that very, very mildly. It is just normal, there are so many jungle gigantifolium exported every year - as it is a very common and fast growing species - that it is a bit difficult to reclaim flasks from illegal seed pods, when there are cargo shipment of that species from the wild that leave Indonesia every few months...

Legally, the FWS is "correct" if they follow the regulations very strictly. I do not think that they are that bad in fact, but I am pretty sure that they are pushed by someone, and they have no other choice to act like that.

Why they bothered with artificially propagated flasks, even if the parents are of dubious origin? I will explain, having been a customs expert for some years...

IF you get a complain from the Indonesian governement, or from a professionnal grower that could not have gigantifolium and is jealous, or hobbyist that is pissed off, or conservationist, or from ET, with evidences that there is something illegal - that there is, indeed, for thoses gigantifolium. YOU MUST FOLLOW IT UP NO MATTER HOW DUMB IT IS.

Otherwise, it is the open door to many things, so the FWS must follow the rules. If they do not seize the gigantifolium, after someone proved that they are illegal, this someone could say that Sam tip the FWS officier at the worst, because he reported something illegal and they did not investigate blabla, or that someone can import hangianum, vietnamense, helenae, coccineum, the same way and say "yep, you say that they are illegal, but you did not care about the gigantifolium story I reported to you, so thoses multigrowth hangianum ARE legal, because I have a paper from the lab that made the sowing".

Technically, gigantifolium is nearly as impossible to legalize as hangianum anyway, because Indo does not issue export licences for paphs, and the flasks need a specific licence in Indo if they are paphs.

I do not think FWS is that bad, and it is very surprising that they are suddenly interested in gigantifolium. I am nearly sure, based on my experience, that someone pushed them to act. Otherwise, Sam already exported gigantifolium and its hybrids overseas with the proper CITES.

FWS just got the proof that thoses plants are from an illegitimate parent, and they are forced to follow up now, no matter how dumb it is.

 

[NYEric]

I wonder what happens if you are a hobbieist and plan on breeding w/ and distributing gigantifolium!?

 

[Roth]

I wonder what happens if you are a hobbieist and plan on breeding w/ and distributing gigantifolium!?

If you plan on distributing gigantifolium, I think you would fall in the commercial grower category for FWS purposes... And anyway there must be a reason why Sam Tsui got a big problem suddenly. It has nothing to do with FWS being lazy or otherwise, it is absolutely related to a NEW event that happened some weeks or months ago, and forced the FWS to investigate. If it is a jealous competitor - who incidentally maybe has only legal and clean plants, and cannot access gigantifolium mature plants for his breeding, or otherwise- of course he will force FWS track anyone who offer for free or not such plants...

I remember that one famous professionnal grower in France would send a letter to the Customs every year to inform that I had several adult sanderianums and some hundreds stonei, blabla. I imported those with a CITES, so I did not care at all, nor the customs did. They knew me, but still I wanted them to check all of my permits to close this story. Otherwise there would have been unbelieveable rumors.

That grower was jealous because he could not afford to buy mature sanderianums from anyone, too expensive, that was the only reason.

Few years before, when I presented him with some blooming size seedlings of the new delenatii strains, he went straight to the customs, jealous that I could have access to such plants...

After that grower claimed that the customs in France were corrupt like hell. because I still had the plants. Of course they were LEGAL. Incidentally I still have a letter signed by this guy where he mentioned my plant collection and offered to store and grow the plants that could be seized from me... When I had the opportunity, he had after that quite a big problem, the worst I could do to him all at once :evil:

To sum it up, no one knows really the truth about why this happens with gigantifolium, but I am sure that it is a personal revenge or some competitors that want Sam down.

FWS is not evil, the informant people who forced FWS to act are... If I was Sam, I would check every offer I turned down, every personal problems I had over the last 1 year let's say, and maybe he would find an explanation and the culprit name. FWS is just the tool, they did not decide anything by themselves...

 

[goldenrose]

Thanks for the info Sanderianum, I can better understand it but 9 years is still 9 years! and all of it's hybrids? :crazy::crazy::crazy:
All species have to be jungle collected, fresh jungle collected is obvious but once they are artifically propagated for 9 years, they're too late as far as I'm concerned! One just has to wonder if they're weeds in some countries do they need to be CITES protected?

 

[SlipperKing]

I had dinner with Sam the first of June (before the monthly meeting) and it is indeed a case of a competitor questioning the legallity of the plants. Sam did all he could to keep the plants (org. and seed grown) but they still took all. The plants went to a "rescue center" where they will become legal! What a rip!

 

[Hera]

If they go to a rescue center, are they then sold off? Will his "competitor" buy up the stock?

 

[Rick]

If they go to a rescue center, are they then sold off? Will his "competitor" buy up the stock?

"Sold" (other than recouping costs of some kind) from a rescue center I would think would be a hypocritical transfer of plants under the CITES no-commerce position.

That would leave CITES in a very difficult position to defend.

More likely the plants would be quietly "dispersed" to neutral third party growers that have limited commercial activities.

Another possibility is that CITES may allow transfer to a another commercial entity that has a good track record of maintaining and breeding Paphs. ANTEC comes to mind for both P vietnamenis and P. helenae. Of which offspring of P. vietnamensis has been available to the public for a while now.

 

[SlipperKing]

I believe Sam also mentioned that he applied to be a registered recure center but was turned down.

 

[Rick]

I believe Sam also mentioned that he applied to be a registered recure center but was turned down.

After or before confiscation of his gigantifolium?

 

[SlipperKing]

After or before confiscation of his gigantifolium?

I believe before but that doesn't mean he wasn't aware of the pending visit by Dept of F&W. Meaning, around the same time period.

 

[Heather]

How many rescue centers are there in the US?

Vietnamense was "rescued" by Antec, and, though they aren't as involved in breeding as they once were, I certainly would not call them a vendor with limited commercial interests.

 

[Rick]

Also aside from periodic internet auctions ANTEC has been running a relatively non-commercial enterprise for at least a few years now.


I do not intend in ANY way to insinuate that ANTEC has gone to this mode of operation to curry favor with CITES. Bob was upfront about his reasons to curtail the retail operation several years ago.

However, I believe that this is the type of institution that CITES would look upon more favorably than a general retail operation.

I used to work in zoo herpetarium/aquarium facilities, and also saw allot of CITES issues work there way through the zoo system with fish/reptiles/amphibians. Usually the first choice for placement is "non for profit" institutions, followed by prominent cooperative dealers after the population became unmanageable at the zoo level.

What I have noticed in the orchid world (vs the zoo world) is the absence of a formal "Species Survival Plan (SSP)" system, where a group of institutions (Some of which could be private for-profits, and were all "recognized" and cooperative with CITES), controlled and transferred animals around under propagation agreements as kind of a "Noah's Ark" philosophy. In some cases as with Lake Victorian cichlid fishes, the population in "the Ark" became overpopulated, and release to the general aquarium trade was inevitable.

This system may be in place informally or secretly in the orchid world, and I'm just not aware of it. If it is in place informally then you end up with lots of suspicion and innuendo. When the system is in place you end up with jealousy and innuendo, but at least you know who has the plants at this point.

 

[Rick]

How many rescue centers are there in the US?

I bet there is a public access list, but I don't think its been publicized enough for most people to know about it.

I believe the Atlanta Botanical Garden is also an orchid rescue center.

I have heard that being a "rescue center" is not much of an opportunity. Sometimes they have been overwhelmed with large confiscations of hybrid phals. rather than endangered species.

 

[Kevin]

For those that subscribe to Orchid Digest, you've read this

Unless you live outside the U.S. I haven't got the latest issue yet. Interesting article, though.