Propagation of endangered species

[flhiker]

Just read a story in the 2/11 AOS magazine of a couple in China propagating rare an endangered species like Paphiopedilum and Cypripedium. Their reason for this is to protect the wild grown plants. Their theory is if they are available for purchase that the demand for poaching will drop. Being that I love searching for wild endangered orchids, this article hit home. I have always felt that their is Conservation in Propagation and encourage this practice.

Just would like to hear others thoughts on this subject.

[RobS]

To me it's the only way. Some people just don't care where there orchids are comming from they just want to have them. This way they profit can be used for the conservation efforts instead of making the traders rich. Also plants that have been artificially propagated are easier to establisch compared to those collected from the wild.

[Discus]

Like everything to do with sustainable management and conservation, it's a tricky road to walk, I think.

Orchid (or any) conservation should never be a single effort - you need in situ conservation and habitat protection in the wild; without removing massive numbers of plants, it's going to be tricky to conserve an adequate gene pool in "captivity".

On the other hand, I definitely think that the demand for plants within the trade must be met from artificially propagated specimens rather than wild collection. I'd love to see that countries could benefit from their indigenous flora in being able to cultivate and sell "their" species on the international market through carefully regulated channels. Outfits like Ecuagenera seem to be a very excellent route to take with this sort of thing, but it would be nice to see more community involvement and/or some way of having smaller farming concerns involved. Tricky, of course...

On the other hand, CITES makes this quite tough. I'm not sure quite how sensationalist it is, but I just finished reading Orchid Fever by Eric Hansen, which takes a pretty dim view of CITES and the way it's implemented (and some of the people involved). It's an interesting book which leaves you quite angry at some of the characters in it, but you have to wonder how much of it is simply good story-telling and how much is fact!

There should definitely be a way of encouraging an international trade in sustainably cultivated plants without too many hurdles, which would not only mean people that love orchids can get their fingers on them, but that the countries which have high biodiversity, and are generally "poor" economically can benefit from that biodiversity sustainably and create employment based on such a renewable resource. I think it's very unfair that the vast majority of such biodiversity gets channelled into a few overseas nurseries which then make all the money based off a few plants they manage to get their paws on and then propagate on a (sometimes vast) scale. Much like how almost everyone uses Kenyan biodiversity (the enzymes in biological washing powder are usually from a Kenyan hot spring bacterium) every time they do the washing, yet Kenya has never seen a cent from this. Or how there's a huge trade in for example Hoodia gordonii for weight loss, and neither the countries where it grows, nor the indigenous peoples whose knowledge it was that lead to the discovery have really benefited.

Many people involved in conservation take a somewhat perverse view that allowing any legal trade whatsoever will "inevitably" lead to poaching and unsustainable impacts on wild populations. I think this is why so many plants have ended up on Appendix I or II without even having any data on quite how rare or vulnerable or endangered a particular species might be. I don't think it's helpful or fair, but on the other hand you do have to weigh up the fact that most customs officials don't know an orchid from an onion, nor would they be able to distinguish an endangered species from one that isn't.

Ultimately, people will get their fingers on the plants they want, no matter how much red tape you put in the way. Make the red tape hard enough, and people will circumvent it entirely, and you stand to lose more than you gain in the long run.

I think important parallels should be drawn to the fact that many large wildlife preserves were originally for hunting, and that much conservation is sustained by continued sustainable wildlife hunts.

[camille1585]

Nice subject for a thread.
I think that what that couple is doing is a very good idea. Some people are going to want an orchid no matter what, even if it's highly endangered. If the plant becomes easily available, I would hope that people would feel less inclined to go out in the wild to get their plant. Of course the only way for this practice to be truely effective is conservation measures are put in place at the same time to protect the wild populations. Maybe all of this is a bit too optimistic though, look what happened to Phrag kovachii. Discovered a few years ago, they have all but disappeared from the few known locations through poaching on a massive scale. The plant went into cultivation quite quickly, but it wasn't enough.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

In the case of Phrag kovachii, I think it's partially the breeders' fault.

They made the plant so expensive, that it made ordinary growers not even consider it affordable.

The plants are highly desirable, but it kinda defeated the purpose to make it anywhere between $250 to $500 a plant.

I think at one point, Phrag kovachii was priced at $1,000 to $2,000 a plant. Who can afford that?!

On the flip side, I don't think wild populations of species Phalaenopsis are in major threat from the trade.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

With Cyps it's tough. Cyps are difficult to propagate from seed.

There is also a lot of bs in regards to how to grow certain orchids floating around.

In my experience in orchid growing, many orchids can be grown in the long term if the knowledge is out there.

Orchid conservation through the hobby should be integrated with in situ conservation.

The pet trade has made dogs and cats so plentiful, there is now a population problem regarding these 2 groups of animals alone.

If I'm not mistaken, there was also a population boom of tortoises in the Mediterranean area due to the popularity of them being pets in ancient times (don't quote me on this, I just remember this off-hand and am somewhat fuzzy on the exact details).

The orchid hobby is not much different.

The problem in the orchid hobby is that there is not enough emphasis on the species. There is way too much emphasis on the hybrids.

Hybrids are fine to have, in my opinion, but conservation of orchids come with the balance between keeping a steady number of hybrids and species in the trade.

In the case of species orchids, we have the myth that species orchids are harder to grow than hybrids to thank for that.

[abigaillevans]

A professor I had in college not too long ago had a class on this very topic. It hits close to home because I do own an orchid that's an endangered species that was cultivated for the sole purpose of making the orchid more available to the public to decrease poaching.

I have a Holy Ghost orchid that was propagated from a plant that's at the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian started growing those plants to cut down on poaching, and my professor was given a plant to take back to Florida. He propagates them in his greenhouse at Florida Southern.

I think that's the only rational way to deal with the problem of poaching endangered species. If one can increase the supply to ease and eventually eliminate the demand for illegally obtained plants, poaching is far less a threat.

[Brotherly Monkey]

the key is sinking the price to the point it isn't worth anyone's time to go out and collect them

[lambelkip]

The problem with propagation of endangered species is that it takes such a long time. Everybody wants blooming sized plants. By the time you have enough blooming sized plants to reduce demand for wild collected plants, the species may already be extinct on the wild.

[Brotherly Monkey]

Originally Posted by lambelkip

The problem with propagation of endangered species is that it takes such a long time. Everybody wants blooming sized plants. By the time you have enough blooming sized plants to reduce demand for wild collected plants, the species may already be extinct on the wild.

well, then people will really want the plants regardless