Just finished reading the book and although it was a well researched read have to wonder how true the story from Kovach's perspective is considering the main characters Kovach and Moore were attempting to make money from selling Phragmipedium kovachii which is the impression I got from the book. It seems they got away with whatever really was going on behind the facade of a story they told.
Also stumbled across these pictures of the book release and notice a few characters from the book are featured but am kind of deflated by the way nobody seems serious about the whole thing. I mean Moore contributed to wiping this orchid out in the wild and he is being celebrated as this great person and invited to the book signing. Kind of an insensitive move on Pittmans part. I mean Moore (should be spelled More) wiped out a entire species for what? A few thousand dollars at most? Moore is holding a copy of the book as if it is some trophy to be proud of, just really ticks me off to be honest.
Random Pixels Blog: Orchids and 'true crime' come together at Books and Books
Although I can see Christensen's point about naming the orchid after Peru, but to my mind after naming a whole orchid genus after himself, I have to wonder what his motivation was to single out this one orchid when he could have named the genus he discovered after it's country of origin instead of calling it Christensonia. He was patronizing Selby and other botanical taxonomic institutions for acting like colonialists against developing countries in their attitudes towards taxonomical nomenclature but can't help but wonder why he decided to put his name on a orchid from Vietnam after all the atrocities his country the United States had already committed towards that country. Kind of smacks of double standards. Find a link about his genus below.
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Sure I found the adventurous Moores escapades fun to read, but in reality think Pittman didn't really emphasize the part they and associates had in pretty much making kovachii populations in the wild a genetic desert by removing so many to the point the plant is for all intensive purposes extinct in the wild. I'm no scientist but from the numbers I have read were coming out of Peru my conclusion would be that the genetic viability of the populations will never recover, but what do I know.
I found myself confused by the environmental lawyer Colbourn who sided with the Moores despite their representing everything she was fighting against. The fact Colbourn knew nothing of the taxonomy world was strange considering her job was so specialized and I can't help but wonder why she never realized the orchid could be renamed but only within a stipulated time frame and why she never brought this into the legal argument is something I will never understand.
In a way I kind of feel Pittman is exploiting kovachii also, in a way, and the fact their is also another book with the same name, from 2004, can't help but make me wonder if he borrowed the title the way Kovach borrowed the orchid. For me the message of this story was one where self interest of individuals lead to the extinction of the greatest orchid find which just happened to be in our modern recent times and the greed expressed by everyone from the orchid scientists, governments and poachers left me feeling completely hopeless and sad at the end.
This book would make a entertaining movie, with the drama of the characters juxtaposed against the dramatic backdrop of Peru I could see it being a breathtaking ride with some amazing cinematic opportunities but wonder if the high drama will overshadow the real story here which is that of the loss of a completely new species in such a short period of time due to carelessness of people to take the theft of a flower seriously.
Although no matter how many books or movies are made, no matter how many kovachii are sold by business people, I can't help but wonder if any of those profits will make their way back to the place where kovachii comes from, to help set up a national park to protect whatever remains of it in the wild, and to relive the poverty of the people living in the local area. I could see a natural forest walk that incorporated wild Phragmipedium kovachii as a sustainable tourist attraction could be a viable option if only money was available for such a thing. I believe to protect nature we can't just isolate ourselves from it but have to make it accessible to people, to a certain point, while also ensuring it is not harmed or poached. But I think if more people could appreciate this orchid in it's natural setting they would not feel a desire to illegally steal it, but maybe that is just me being naive.
Sure their is the existing Alto Mayo national park but nothing has been designated specifically for Phragmipedium kovachii. Actions speak louder than words, and in this case it seems nobody has given the local area or people a second thought. I'm surprised INRENA didn't set up a scheme whereby all the sales of kovachii somehow contributed something back to the local area to help protect the habitat. I'm also surprised Pittman didn't think of doing something similar with his book. Actions certainly speak louder than words for me.
I found I couldn't relate to any of the characters, they all seemed to contradict themselves and nobody really seemed to care about the plight of the wild Phragmipedium kovachii at all, beyond talking about conserving it with idle talk, nobody ever did anything about the words they said. Also the whole mechanism for the way CITES works seems to be only to fulfill self interest and act in a favorable way towards the orchid specialist who was involved with writing the flora part. Kind of hard to take that treaty seriously after reading this book when governments don't bother to train their customs staff on how to identify different orchids- what are they paying them for then? Everyone in the governments were just full of excuses in the end and nobody took the theft of this flower seriously. 'It's only a flower' so many people would exclaim, but it is so much more than just a flower, it is the principles and rules behind it that govern the very foundations of a lawful society that were to me under attack and eroded by complacency and an inability to recognize this was a serious matter.
At end how so many of the characters suddenly lost the orchid interest and moved on just showed their true colours.
So what were other peoples opinions of the book?
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