----- Original Message -----
To: "Multiple recipients of list AROID-L"
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2001 5:17 PM
Subject: RE: News from what remains of the Jungle
|
| Ron,
| I think you have lost part of the equation here. Millions of plants are
gone
| because people have become indignant and will not allow material to be
wild
| collected. Millions of acres are slashed and burned every hour. You should
| read into this "burned" as being completely unavailable to anyone but God.
| There is no way we can bring this material back. The Brazilian government
| has adapted a red line law that is emphatic about wild material. They can
| not get it through their thick heads about the fact that it is their own
| ignorance that is destroying these plants.
| They need to adapt a collection and preserve mentality to at least remove
| plants after the trees have been slashed and move the material to growing
| facilities and grown on and when strong enough, sell to the world market.
| I'm not talking "white gringo greed" here. I'm talking practical solutions
| to save the very same plants you would like to have.
| And, just for your info, if it were not for greedy collectors in the early
| part of last century, Your garden would be a very boring thing. You would
| have none of the foods you enjoy, none of the trees you enjoy and none of
| the medications you so seem to think are the result of greed. Many of
these
| medications have saved millions of lives a year. I do not agree with the
way
| they are marketed and marked up unnecessarily but the fact remains that we
| have them.
| "I am beginning to wonder if I should ask expert native
| > BOTANISTS to collect and supply tiny samples for this Ark at FULL PRICE
| and
| when I visit their Countries to do so to observe, support THEM and help
| WITHOUT collecting. "
|
| There are very few expert native botanists. They just don't exist. I'm not
| being condescending. I'm being realistic. And another realistic note, in
the
| countries we are speaking of (Brazil in particular) the masses of poor you
| so wish to save are as ignorant about the value of the plants I wish to
| acquire as they are about what fair market value is. Their economy is so
out
| of whack that fair value/legalities/decent living is very confusing.
|
| And just FYI, it is very easy to get legal material out of Brazil. I do it
| every month. And each plant shipment is government documented, inspected,
| and approved. There is protocol and that must be followed. I have been
lucky
| to find several friends in Brazil who are as concerned about the native
| plants to be sensible to cultivate and export. All the plants that I have
| received are from cultivated material produced from years of growing from
| either seeds, cuttings, or division. I am in the process of setting up a
| growing area/production facility in Brazil to produce mass quantities of
| native flora, everything from Aroids, bulbs, flowering trees, and palms to
| gingers and heliconias. It is merely a matter of time to get the monies
| together. The Brazilian permits are all lined up and ready to go. This
would
| not only sustain Brazilian natives (if only in the cultivated sense
because
| their "natives" will destroy the wild forms) but also educate the
employees
| as well as supply them will decent housing and income.
|
| John Ingram
|
|
|
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