Regarding Pepe

From: plantnut plantnut at macconnect.com> on 2001.07.27 at 06:20:40(7149) I received the following from a friend that is deeply involved with conservation and saving plants... Actually, this individual is in the process of writing a book... They did not want to be identified for obvious reasons... But, I thought the comments were too good to let lie.... Dewey +More > I think Jay Vannini, Ed Goncalves and Jim Langhammer and others hashed >over this one (Conservation) pretty well a few weeks ago. The Gentleman >is obviously a naive idealist. His idealism is a crucial element in >getting something done about saving plants but also an element in the >subversion of a 'right way' to go about it. Uninformed, naivety is so >easily satisfied and so easily lead astray. Sadly, he's sitting on his >hands thinking that all the mechanisms for preservation are in place. He >is wrong. He thinks this is about saving plants when, as it is structured >now, it is more a matter of egos and control. A small way of waging world >war. People will make money under the table on BOTH side. people will >go to jail, bureaucracy will proliferate and the plants will be no further >ahead. They will actually have suffered as time passes without effective >measures in place. Odds are, those cycads will probably end up in the >hands of a collector in the US, not back in EC where they legally belong, >much less Colombia where they originated. This is a fact. It happens all >the time at Inspection Stations. People have been working for years to try >and bring some sanity into this mess, without success. It seems to get >ever worse. The notion of the good guys and the bad guys is pretty dumb. > There are both on both sides. > >These are my feeling, Your source for Tropical Araceae http://members.macconnect.com/users/p/plantnut/

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