Exactly Craig, things work OK when the man in the street organises them and uses common sense. It is as soon as public servants get involved things go haywire! Ours have lost dozens of computer disks with confidential citizens personal information on them, but still nobody has been sacked. The incompetent in the public sector always keep their jobs and pensions!
Everybody was in favour of CITES, but it is simply not accountable and it's representatives are largely self appointed with no democratic input from the citizen or powers through election to remove the incompetent. Neither are their recommendations or listings voted upon by those we elect in our national assemblies, but simply passed "on the nod" by governments without proper scrutiny.
It will never get better until CITES representatives and their listings are put under proper scrutiny and control by our elected representatives.
DaveW
Morpho rhetenor cacica
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Harold Gough
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Nor me, having both imported and exported in earlier decades!DaveW wrote:Don't get me on CITES as a cactophile.
The classic was when HM Customs held onto a large box while they wrote to ask me for the licence. When I finally received the parcel there was an envelope stuck to the top left corner, clearly labelled that it contained the document. (I have a photo of that somewhere). Muppets!
Harold
My images are a medium for sharing some of my experiences: they are not me.
Legitimate international trade in cultivated cactus and succulents (and I am sure many other plants) has now been virtually killed off by CITES regulation. It is now too much trouble and too expensive for nurserymen to get the required paperwork for an order, and the cost of the paperwork in order to pay the bureaucrats often exceeds the value of the plants. Yet our countries are supposed to be encouraging international trade!
CITES does nothing to stop the illegal trade in collected plants either because when a new species is discovered, though it's export may be prohibited by it's native country, it will be in cultivation in Eastern Europe within a year, and seed from these plants will be available in the EU not long afterwards. Once within the borders of the EU it can be sent to any EU member country without any licences or paperwork being required because we are a free trade area, so it can go from France to Germany and then on to Malta unhindered, but not to the USA or anywhere outside the EU!
The more plants are propagated from a release of a small amount of initially collected material to bona fide nurserymen the less pressure there is to collect plants in habitat. The trouble is those enforcing the regulations cannot tell the difference between a cultivated and collected plant, even though a novice collector can. So cultivated material has to jump through the same hoops that collected material does and so international trade in propagated material is killed off which would remove the pressure for illegally collected material through removing the financial incentives to illegally collect.
The inmates are now certainly in charge of the asylum! I will end my comments here as we have got off subject.
DaveW
CITES does nothing to stop the illegal trade in collected plants either because when a new species is discovered, though it's export may be prohibited by it's native country, it will be in cultivation in Eastern Europe within a year, and seed from these plants will be available in the EU not long afterwards. Once within the borders of the EU it can be sent to any EU member country without any licences or paperwork being required because we are a free trade area, so it can go from France to Germany and then on to Malta unhindered, but not to the USA or anywhere outside the EU!
The more plants are propagated from a release of a small amount of initially collected material to bona fide nurserymen the less pressure there is to collect plants in habitat. The trouble is those enforcing the regulations cannot tell the difference between a cultivated and collected plant, even though a novice collector can. So cultivated material has to jump through the same hoops that collected material does and so international trade in propagated material is killed off which would remove the pressure for illegally collected material through removing the financial incentives to illegally collect.
The inmates are now certainly in charge of the asylum! I will end my comments here as we have got off subject.
DaveW
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augusthouse
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augusthouse
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Just uploading some minor adjustments and the subtraction of some cropping.
Craig
Craig
Last edited by augusthouse on Sat Jun 14, 2008 1:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"
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rjlittlefield
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augusthouse
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- Location: New South Wales Australia
Hi David,
The wing here is separate (I have quite a few wings). I placed the wing on the stage and just used a microscope slide - out of shot - to hold it in place. You can see it in the photographs of the setup (see link in post above in reply to Laurie).
Craig
The wing here is separate (I have quite a few wings). I placed the wing on the stage and just used a microscope slide - out of shot - to hold it in place. You can see it in the photographs of the setup (see link in post above in reply to Laurie).
Craig
To use a classic quote from 'Antz' - "I almost know exactly what I'm doing!"