Seed from Kaktusy?

[JustSayNotoCactus]

Yeah, I have ordered from him a few times, and gotten my seed eventually every time. A couple of years ago I ordered from him and as the months went by I thought the order had been lost and completely forgot about it. Then, last winter, the package arrived totally unexpected, and to tell you the truth I have no recollection of sending him a payment. I was so blown away that I made another order from his amazing list and received that one very fast, maybe three months instead of seven. It came with a note that said to contact him for payment details, I emailed him several times and so far there has been absolutely no response. I really do want to get a hold of him too, and the reason is that the seeds come marked as G1 through G40 for example and I was not smart enough to print out my order, so now I have a lot of pots of seedlings labeled G12 etc. The seed quality varies from completely bunk to 99% germination so be ready for anything, the only thing I would do different is to sterilize as much seed as possible, some of it is a little dirty and may have been carried down a dusty trail on the back of a donkey for all we know.

As far a wild collection goes, which is better; leaving the seed in the field for the indigenous people to dig up and sell to tourists for five cents, or plow up for housing developments and agriculture, or make a necklace out of them so their wife will have many strong babies, or make a garbage dump out of, or, maybe we should have a chance at growing some of these things ourselves until the natives can be educated about what is growing right under their feet. It seems like everything natural on this earth is either being trashed or exploited right now in every corner of the globe, can we really afford to leave anything out in the field anymore, if we come back to look for it the next year, chances are it will be dug up, burned, or graphittied on. At least there are hard working Czechs out there willing to travel to dangerous places for months at a time to do this for us, we should thank them.

[Arjen]

well, I suppose that is a both a bit true and a bit shortsighted.

the thing is, that these 'hard working Czechs out there' not only go to places at danger of being destroyed by the primitive natives who need to be educated (we enlightened living examples of arrogance better go there to teach them soon!)
instead they seek out small and fragile habitats, collecting plants and seeds by the busload, only leaving the unwanted unhealthy specimens.
when buildings are being constructed some plants at least have some chance to survive on the roadside.
your 'hard working Czechs' also are not likely to have preservation in mind, greed is the main motive.

another thing is that hard work is only commendable when the workers play by the rules.
the "backward" people of, for example, Bolivia, have lists with plants that are protected, and regulations that state that it is FORBIDDEN to export ANY plant material without the proper paperwork and permissions.

[DaveW]

It is a sad fact that everywhere we live we destroyed habitat to make out houses or build our factories and are still doing so. The West is always hypocritical though, being a case of do what we say not what we do. The off road vehicle clan constantly destroy habitat through wanting to drive across country rather than stick to roads that have already destroyed plants and habitat in their construction.

Britain was once climax woodland, but man started to destroy that in the Stone Age and we have continued to do so ever since. Agriculture was always a destroyer of habitat.

http://south-coast-central.co.uk/wildwood.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Europe started the trend which the immigrant Americans took up later, claiming they were taming and civilising the wilderness and it's indigenous peoples. Who is most at fault then, nations who only have a small proportion of their original habitats left, or countries where most of it still remains?

http://saveamericasforests.org/resource ... uction.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I am not religious, but does not the bible say "let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? The West is not sinless when it comes to habitat destruction and the jobs you presently enjoy probably all still depend on, or originally depended on habitat destruction, either for raw materials or the site your workplace stands on, often evicting the original inhabitants who were there first through conquest so you could do it, as also happened in Britain's case with succeeding conquerors.

I think many of us would agree CITES, being run by governments is now too political and corrupt and that controlled harvesting of seed does no damage to habitat since germination in cultivation is often better because most seed in habitat gets covered and never germinates anyway. Conservation needs moving out of the political arena to independent non government bodies like The World Wildlife Fund, whose staff don't depend on the public sector for their pay checks. But that will never happen since politicians know if they now loose control their own governments would come in for criticism from an independent non political body and criticism of a foreign government from an independent conservation body inside their country may prejudice a lucrative arms deal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8606011.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I agree with some of the sentiments JSNC expresses though. A friend of mine when in Chile saw a farmer piling up loads of Eriosyce in the corner of a field to burn them. He said to my friend "take all you want". My friend said "I can't, since if I took them back to the UK I would be stopped by CITES taking them into the country". The farmer said "since they will be destroyed anyway CITES is a fool!".

Farmers are allowed in many countries to spray all the plants with herbicides to kill them, but should anybody collect one and try and take it abroad they are committing a crime. Our governments are as much to blame for not letting rescued plants in as foreign ones are for not letting them out and licencing has become too bureaucratic and actually works against conservation now

[Onzuka]

Don't loose sight of the fact that some of the plants that we grow are listed as CITES 1. These are given full protection and can not be offered for sale without the full CITES permits. Astrophytum asterias immediately springs to mind. How many of us would think twice about selling one of these plants without the paperwork?

I also keep and attempt to breed CITES 1 tortoises. I have full documentation for those, including identification by means of implanted microchips. There are many people out there trawling the internet for those offering CITES tortoises for sale without the necessary paperwork and reporting them to the authorities. Nobody seems to care about what we are doing and it's the exact same rules and regulations.

Steve

[DaveW]

The police will tell you that they can only successfully enforce laws the majority agree to. Eventually really unpopular laws fall by the wayside and are ignored by the public and even the authorities, therefore sink into oblivion even though still on the statute book and technically an offence. In the UK we have many ancient laws still on our statute book that the authorities would never dream of enforcing in this day and age, or any court uphold them. When you think that CITES regulations are decided by a non democratically elected QUANGO and are never put before our legislatures to be voted on line by line by our elected representatives therefore come into law by the back door so to speak, you will not get too much public support for the more ridiculous ones, only those the mass of the public agree with.

Most prosecutions under CITES seem to concern birds and animals, knowing the public puts feeling creatures on a different level to plants.

Unpopular laws eventually "whither on the vine" and will be ignored by the majority. Once that happens the authorities stop enforcing them, or even stop enforcing laws the enforcers do not agree with and so turn a blind eye. A policeman said to me once if I enforced all trivial laws whilst on patrol I would never manage to get more than a hundred yards from the police station on my rounds.

http://him.uk.msn.com/in-the-know/artic ... =155492380" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I am sure most countries have such outdated laws still technically in existence, but they were once current and only relegated to history because the mass of the population ignored them, or they stopped being relevant therefore the authorities stopped enforcing them. The problem is once unenforceable laws get onto the statute book politicians are more engaged in inventing new ones in order to get elected than clearing the redundant ones from the past.

[Arjen]

that doesn't go up for these plant laws though, I know quite some people that were given fines (and rightly so) for smuggling plants out of their country of origin
these laws are enforced and should be! people don't realize how many sulcorebutia populations were destroyed by these people, and that's just an example

[DaveW]

Agreed Arjen, but with all laws it is a case of number of enforcers and the intelligence they can gather versus number breaking the law. Once the number of lawbreakers exceed the capacity of enforcers to enforce it law breaks down. Apart from those possessed by Botanical Gardens I don't think there are any new species that have been legally exported from Mexico in the last decade, but how many collectors now have Aztekium hintonii, or Geohintonia mexicana? Even if they are now from cultivated plants or seed the originals were illegally smuggled out of Mexico as either plants or seeds.

In most EU countries the number of state employees is having to be, or will have to be, drastically reduced since present public sector manpower numbers is far too large for countries in deficit to support. Therefore enforcement will need to be switched to crimes the public considers the state should concentrate on, like drugs and illegal immigration. If not politicians will loose their seats. Therefore enforcement at points of entry to the EU will probably switch to those more serious crimes.

I think we are all aware that much of the illegal cacti within the EU come in through what used to be part of the old Eastern Block where their authorities are much more cavalier in the enforcement of CITES regulations and once within the EU the material can travel freely being a free trade area, uninhibited by the need for paperwork, even though CITES might like it not to be so.

There are probably more CITES checks at our UK borders than yours Arjen since Britain is not a signatory to the Schengen Agreement, which is a smugglers charter for taking plants across EU borders. As an instance somebody I used to know bought a villa in Spain and just dug up and took all their garden plants they wanted from the UK in the boot and back of their car and was never challenged or inspected once from up north in the UK right across Spain to the Costa del Sol. Apparently many British visitors to the rest of the EU also bring plants back in their luggage, which must be x-rayed for bombs before getting on the planes, but no notice is taken by the authorities and no doubt the same situation exists with air travellers within the Schengen Area, let alone those travelling by car over EU borders. Some of these plants obviously could be on CITES appendices.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Agreement" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The truth is nobody knows how much plant or even animal smuggling goes on and what proportion of this trade the officials detect, therefore how effective they are really being. Also this is merely the EU, how much plant smuggling from habitat to the Americas, Asia or Middle East goes on is unknown too.

"Illicit trade in live plants.

Within the European Community, Germany is one of the major consumer countries of imported live plants. There are many highly specialized nurseries and collectors in Germany, dealing among others with the propagation of CITES-listed plants. Unfortunately, the illegal import of protected live plants still occurs in Germany, sometimes in significant amounts. Persons involved in these unlawful activities can be categorized according to their differing motivations. These are tourists, ambitious private collectors and professional smugglers with major commercial interests. The plant-smuggling tourist is mainly interested in bringing back home the lovely flowering plants that he/she sees while travelling, and this usually involves smuggling 1-10 plants without any of the documents required. Very often, these plants have been artificially propagated in nurseries."

http://www.cites.org/eng/news/world/9.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another quote from the above:-

"all too often court cases can become a dispute between specialists over whether the specimens were taken from the wild or artificially propagated, and if sufficient doubt exists, the judge may proceed on the basis that the defendant is right and he will be set free."

Though enforcers may work on the basis guilty until proved innocent, British courts work on the premise innocent until proved guilty, therefore it is up to the prosecution to prove an offence has been committed, not up to the defendant to prove they are innocent.

With the reduction in the public sector funding too publicity is not always a good thing for CITES since the vast majority of the voting public may ask their politicians why all this money and manpower is not being devoted to something they may consider more worthwhile, like drugs and illegal immigration, therefore that may lead to transfer of enforcement personnel from CITES duties to enforcement of laws the majority prefers. The one exception in the UK would probably be the illegal import of animals in a cruel manner since the British are a nation of animal lovers.

[Arjen]

yes, here too any animal they try to smuggle in has a large chance of being confiscated, unfortunately for plants that is not the case
I think the best way to stop this would be more checks in the plants native country

[DaveW]

Trouble Arjen is the country that is most vocal member of CITES for prohibiting all cactus and seed exports was named as having one of the most corrupt administrations and border officials, many who were involved in drug smuggling and taking bribes to let stuff across their borders.

"Prior to President Salinas De Gortari, Mexican customs was a joke. Everybody knew that if you wanted to bring contraband across the border it wasn't a question of whether you could get away with it but how much of a bribe would be necessary. I can remember how we applauded the new president (Gortari) for his courage and cunning in attacking the customs department by training 3000 new agents in secret and then replacing all of the "old guard" in one day with his cadre of newly trained recruits; sporting new uniforms to underscore what we thought was the beginning of a new day. Today, it is back to business as usual at the border. It requires a little more discretion, and perhaps a heftier payoff, but the result is the same: if you want to bring something across the border without paying the normal duty it can be accomplished."

http://www.mexicomatters.net/retirement ... mexico.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is not just a Mexican problem though, I wonder if any Western country can say it's own officials are 100% clean when it comes to being bribed to look the other way?

http://www.today.com/id/42061290/ns/tod ... gifcL5waRs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government ... ne-Bribery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... eveal.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The best way for politicians and officials to make money through corruption is to make something illegal then take bribes for looking the other way. The reduction in supply also makes the smuggled item worth more, so more incentive to illegally collect and pay bribes to get it over borders. I am sure officials are not only being bribed to get goods or people over the US borders, but also over borders and into Europe and Asia too, apart from people just smuggling things out undetected in their vehicles or luggage.

CITES officials tend to go for tip-off's or those who put their heads above the parapet, such as the one that published a new species and deposited the type plant without having the required documentation. Would they have found him if not, or possibly countless others who have probably just "kept their heads down" and cultivated the plant? As said before courts require proof something was obtained illegally to convict, a mere suspicion is not enough. The difficulty too is with species that were in cultivation pre CITES in proving in court they were not cultivated plants but new imports from habitat.

In fact looking on the Internet it is hard to find just how many seizures of illegal plants Customs officials do make each year within the EU in order to see how effective CITES enforcement really is? As said before, policing CITES costs a country money and politicians realise that the taxpayer may consider there are more important ways that border security should be used, therefore what types of staff should be employed and politicians rely on electoral votes to keep "their own snouts in the trough", therefore will inevitable bow to public pressure in the end and re-assign staff to more electorally favourable enforcement.

Afraid what we think as cactophiles or even CITES officials will have little influence on politicians since our hobby is very much a minority interest when it comes to the electorate as a whole who have much more pressing requirements on the use of taxpayers money for border controls than finding a few hundred illegal plants slipping into the EU every year. All CITES officials can do is make an example of the odd few they catch hoping to discourage the many they probably don't.

[JustSayNotoCactus]

"Bolivia, have lists with plants that are protected, and regulations that state that it is FORBIDDEN to export ANY plant material without the proper paperwork and permissions." So they can figure out how much the bribe should be! The more protected the plant or animal, the higher the bribe, that is all there is to it, its just that simple. Thats why the responsibility rests upon us as propagators to build up numbers of plants that are in danger of extinction so that they may be re introduced should the people in the country of origin decide that they care about environmental management rather than straight up plunder.

[Arjen]

excuse me but that is rather naïve, the sole purpose of us collecting plants is us collecting them
if you think we are conserving them to one day repopulate habitats you are sorely mistaken! will never happen!
we can make up excuses all we want to, but the fact is that we contribute to species disappearing in the wild
I would like to add to that that I found your initial post quite offensive and condescending to native people in countries of origin, arrogant actually

[JustSayNotoCactus]

well, excuse the f out of me, but people ARE re introducing succulents into the wild. Just lately I have read about a man who is re introducing Turbinicarpus in Mexico, a project to re introduce lithops in South Africa, and in Arizona succulent plants are literally tagged by the dept of agriculture and moved to other areas. I have personally stood in a grove of re located ocatillo just 100 miles or so east of here. So don't tell me the sole purpose of collecting plants is to collect them, I personally have a couple of flats of native cactus that used to grow here in town, and they will be planted to re populate and not sold to anyone. Your arrogant post about how arrogant my post was is just ridiculous, I have nothing against native peoples at all, but that still doesn't mean that they have the will or the means to stop habitat destruction. Furthermore it seems like you are a people hater yourself, going on and on about how corrupt the Czechs are, but you believe Bolivian customs officials are above reproach. Phooey! What do you know about native peoples anyway, have you actually been to any of these places and talked to any of them about the plant trade? Well I have, and nobody gives a shoot unless you are paying them to, but that's a common trait in all peoples of the world, not just indigenous people.

Whats in your collection anyway, where did all of your plants come from, where did the seed come from that made your plants? Are you going to tell us all of your material was 100% ethically harvested, so there is absolutely no blood on your hands? Didn't the Netherlands plunder all of the Tulips out of eastern Europe they possibly could a few hundred years ago, why are you picking on the Czechs when they are not the only offenders in the world?

[Arjen]

I suggest we keep this discussion civilized, this is a family friendly forum

if I offended you, I do apologize, I however felt that what you said about these people needed to be addressed

I particularly meant this:

As far a wild collection goes, which is better; leaving the seed in the field for the indigenous people to dig up and sell to tourists for five cents, or plow up for housing developments and agriculture, or make a necklace out of them so their wife will have many strong babies, or make a garbage dump out of, or, maybe we should have a chance at growing some of these things ourselves until the natives can be educated about what is growing right under their feet

indigenous people often know much more about "what's growing under their feet" than you seem to think
the assumption of corruption in Bolivian customs only proves my point, you have surely only been in a few places and talked to a few people, that doesn't prove anything
I know many examples of natives willing and able to protect their wildlife

now about those czechs, because it seems I need to explain that a bit more
I have nothing against any nation or people, as you pointed out we all have blood on our hands
dutch history is full of oppression, theft and slavery and is partly why you now live in the US, assuming you are of european descent of course!
there is one problem here though, the czech cactus collectors have build up a reputation of being plant smugglers with mostly profit in mind

some examples:
- in recent years quite some sulcorebutia species were described, but once their locations were known, the czechs came and robbed a lot of them almost empty
- some time ago a few czech gentlemen were arrested at the US/mexican border with suitcases full of CITES I cacti

there is nothing we should thank them for

I'm not saying that it is all czechs, in fact I have also said in this discussion that I know some people that have had to pay fines, they are evidently dutch
it's safe to say that european collectors of plants have no intention at all to repopulate any habitat at any time, and for most american collectors the same thing counts, they are nothing better in any regard
of course I know of rescue plants and repopulation projects in the US, but that doesn't have much to do with this discussion
this is about ethics!

in fact there is no real reason, aside from profit, to take plants out of their habitats
most of these plants won't survive in our collections and there isn't much use, aside from decadence, having a collection of plants that are extinct in the wild, even though you are planning to some day smuggle them back into their countries and repopulate their habitats
now would they instead harvest a FEW seeds, grow them to mature plants and THEN sell them the damage wouldn't be so large and we would still get our plants
people however tend to be impatient, when a plant is described they immediately want it
I am as much guilty of that as you are, none of us have clean hands, being aware of that may help a lot!

and we should never thank a thief!

[DaveW]

Yes lets keep personalities out of the subject.

Re-population of habitats is not as simple as people may think. For instance to introduce what may be considered the same species but from another area is supplementing what is left of the original population with genes that never existed there in the first place, a sort of hybridity within what we may presently call the same species, but which might through DNA Sequencing eventually prove to be different species. Therefore reintroductions cannot be done in a haphazard way and only stock reintroduced that came from that actual locality in the first place. Unfortunately even the public institutions that do this often don't observe that rule.

Secondly some habitats are disappearing due to climate change, be that man made or natural. The north of Chile is becoming more and more arid every year and the plants are naturally dying out there, so what do you do then, permanently introduce irrigation to keep the introductions alive? People forget that extinction is necessary for another plant to fill that niche in future and has always happened since time began, therefore should man intervene to prevent natural extinction and halt the natural progression of a habitat?

Living plants of Islaya krainziana could be found in the north of Chile a couple of decades ago, now all those who go only report dead ones due to the aridity. Maybe seed in the ground would regenerate the population should it rain, but rain in the foreseeable future seems unlikely:-

"Moreover, some weather stations in the Atacama have never received rain. Periods of up to four years have been registered with no rainfall in the central sector, delimited by the cities of Antofagasta, Calama and Copiapó, in Chile. Evidence suggests that the Atacama may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971."

As we know many original habitats have now been replaced by human habitation and farming, just as with the areas we live in. Therefore re-introduction of any species that was indigenous to those is now no longer tenable. Do you therefore introduce those species to areas they never inhabited, which is akin to creating a botanical garden for plants not native to an area, or a "zoo" for plants, plus they may also then hybridise with the indigenous species?

Maybe the place for plants dying out in habitat that cannot logically be re-established is the "plant zoo's" we call botanical gardens or our own collections, but certainly re-introductions should never be of genetic material that never previously inhabited that area since that is pollution of the natural gene pool and the equivalent of hybridisation of the remaining indigenous population?

[JustSayNotoCactus]

Thank you Arjen for your most recent post. I actually agree with you on most every point you have made, and I do realize there are groups of people who are prone to capitalize on the diminishing wealth the planet has to offer. I also know about the Czechs who tried to smuggle a 10 foot saguaro out of Arizona, and the ten headed Ariocarpus (s) that have come up on ebay europe. If I found them digging up cacti on my land, I'd do the american thing, and shoot at them! I also know from reading the Mesemb Study Group bulletin that the Coles, while researching lithops in south Africa, came upon an indigenous woman with several thousand lithops she had collected to string on necklaces to be sold as fertility charms. Now this is ignorance pure and simple and it is not an insult to her or her people to say that she is ignorant, that is a description of a level of consciousness, and not a put down. If it could be proven to her and her community that a woman can not get pregnant from having a dying lithops tied around her neck then that would be education. If they could be shown that these plants are quite rare, getting rarer, and are not very fertile themselves, then the people that live there might think of them as being more sacred left where they are growing rather than sacrificed for a love charm. If the farmers from Texas right on down to the tip of Chile could be educated to replant the spiny things their livestock steps on instead of burning them in a pile, that would also be a person going from a state of ignorance to a state of being informed.

Truth is I don't know what to think, it is a very complicated situation with much love for the plants and many people willing to profit off of that love. What are we supposed to do, have a relatively mundane collection of not very endangered Echinocerei from Colorado, while the unscrupulous sellers and buyers have everything new and interesting that they will rob from the earth anyway. Maybe I wouldn't buy an imported specimen but i would hope that experienced propagators will buy at least two specimens, flower them, seed them out, and sell me a couple of seedlings so that the species can continue in some way.

Let me be clear, I do not advocate habitat destruction by anyone, but there are other factors like the climate change mentioned by DaveW, since there are evidently no Islaya Kranziana left in habitat, aren't you glad that someone dug a few of them up to get the seed to start the seedlings we have purchased. Otherwise we would just have a few dead cactus husks out in the desert and no body would even know what they would have looked like. That's just one example, and no one has even brought up Goats yet. Goats are the only source of meat and milk for millions, maybe billions of people, and they will eat anything but the nastiest Euphorbia. They can easily live off of plants so dried out and or poisonous that they literally make arable land into desert. There is a reason why Satan is depicted as a goat. People have theorized that in the past there were many more succulent species in Africa than there are today, since the goats will eat a plant down to nothing, then dig up the roots and eat them too.

DaveW's point about re-introduction and hybridity could be rectified slightly by the use of collection numbers and locality data. Saying that re-introduction is too difficult or inconvenient for people to ever really make happen sounds like giving up. Zoos re-introduce animals all the time, and no body ever says "Oh why bother," they just do it and hope it works, and sometimes it does, and even if it doesn't work the first time, the information spreads, and people get more into it, The North American Timber Wolf is one example. Even if living the good life in our collection is making cacti species genetically soft, they can still adapt back to nature again, after all they have adapted to our greenhouses just fine.

Love you guys, thanks for the lively discussion,
JSN