Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

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Stuart
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by Stuart »

Karl couldn't have put it any better - and in perfect English with a bit of Latin too! UK nurseries could easily produce these plants by grafting or from seed but there's no point if they can't be sold openly at BCSS events. This simply opens up the market for buying habitat plants online from those countries that do not enforce CITES rules and leads to more illegal poaching.

Stuart
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by Pattock »

KarlR wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 8:47 pm I get it's something the BCSS has to respect on account of Mexican laws, but I think it is completely counterproductive. As for naming and shaming? Why? What's the point? What's the difference between selling Ariocarpus bravoanus and Lophophora alberto-vojtechii when it comes to conservation efforts? The former is legal because it was discovered before 1997, while the latter is not because it was discovered after 1997. The former is to my knowledge more threatened in habitat.
The difference is simply that it is easier to prove in a court of law that a plant of Lophophora alberto-vojtechii has been obtained illegally through criminal gangs because it was not discovered until after the law was implemented in 1997. The species such as Ariocarpus bravoanus can still be equally illegal if obtained from Mexico after 1997 but that is more difficult to prove. Unless you still have the receipt from the criminal gang from whom you bought it. Any member of this forum and/or Society should have done their due diligence on any and all Mexican cacti they obtained after 1997 and have that documentation to hand in case of any query.

Any commercial nursery that has knowingly sold plants obtained from criminal gangs should be named, shamed and ostracised from the community. :cac4:
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by esp »

I'd like to see more clarification of the legal issues here.

What is the legal opinion behind: "Therefore, plants of most Mexican cacti such as... ... discovered since 1997 which are available in Europe have to be considered as illegal" ?
Does this mean that possession of such plants is a criminal offence? And/or sale or distribution?
Was the initial crime exporting/importing specific physical plant material, or exporting/importing specific taxa?

On a more practical level, I would have thought the best way to discourage illegal trade in these tax would be to massively encourage commercial propagation - once IKEA is selling grafted Mamm. bertholdii by the pallet, habitat pressures would surely decrease?

The other point, banning showing of habitat collected plants seems a great step, in principle.
Exactly how is this to be achieved in reality?
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by KarlR »

Stuart wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 11:13 pm Karl couldn't have put it any better - and in perfect English with a bit of Latin too! UK nurseries could easily produce these plants by grafting or from seed but there's no point if they can't be sold openly at BCSS events. This simply opens up the market for buying habitat plants online from those countries that do not enforce CITES rules and leads to more illegal poaching.

Stuart
Cheers 🙂👍

Fully agree with what you say. It would not be hard at all for nurseries to mass produce all these species, and the reason it's actually possible to acquire a plant like Astro caput-medusae today is precisely because nurseries and ordinary collectors have done this and sold or given away seeds and plants.
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by KarlR »

Pattock wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 12:31 am
KarlR wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 8:47 pm I get it's something the BCSS has to respect on account of Mexican laws, but I think it is completely counterproductive. As for naming and shaming? Why? What's the point? What's the difference between selling Ariocarpus bravoanus and Lophophora alberto-vojtechii when it comes to conservation efforts? The former is legal because it was discovered before 1997, while the latter is not because it was discovered after 1997. The former is to my knowledge more threatened in habitat.
The difference is simply that it is easier to prove in a court of law that a plant of Lophophora alberto-vojtechii has been obtained illegally through criminal gangs because it was not discovered until after the law was implemented in 1997. The species such as Ariocarpus bravoanus can still be equally illegal if obtained from Mexico after 1997 but that is more difficult to prove. Unless you still have the receipt from the criminal gang from whom you bought it. Any member of this forum and/or Society should have done their due diligence on any and all Mexican cacti they obtained after 1997 and have that documentation to hand in case of any query.

Any commercial nursery that has knowingly sold plants obtained from criminal gangs should be named, shamed and ostracised from the community. :cac4:
I think this is rubbish. No one is going to produce documentation that their post 1997 plants were acquired in compliance with Mexican laws, apart from the likes of Kew. So basically what you want is a blanket ban on growing any Mexican species described after 1997? Why? Is it to do with conservation efforts or do you simply want to comply with Mexican laws?

If it's the latter then ok fine, if that's so important to you. If it's the former then we fundamentally disagree about how to go about reducing pressure on plants in habitat as regards illegal collecting.

Your last paragraph, I think incidents like the couple behind that Spanish nursery (forget the name) who were caught in South Africa with thousands of illegally collected habitat plants, trying to get them out of the country, should be named, shamed and shunned. But would you automatically assume that a nursery selling Astro caput-medusae is selling habitat collected plants? Or do you believe that since the parent material (however many generations ago) were acquired illegally, the selling of present day cultivated material is also illegal and deserving of naming, shaming and shunning?
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by Phil_SK »

KarlR wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:08 ama blanket ban on growing any Mexican species described after 1997
Mexican cacti discovered after 21 November 1997
I know it's not the point you're making but it needs highlighting - plants described by a certain date might have been in cultivation for years beforehand. Without a list of which taxa were discovered after this date it's really muddled.
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by Acid John »

I do hope that Bradleya doesn't fuel a desire for new species by publishing any new descriptions from Mexico. Escobaria abdita was shown in Bradleya 30, surely that was a wrong thing for the society to do?
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by edds »

I agree that Phil and esp's points need clarifying before this can really be implemented.

Also what would happen with undescribed taxa and any sp.aff. that might be in the hobby? How would you know when they were 'discovered'. What if they were split from another species 10 years or more down the line?

Edit:
I think it's really good Ian has got a voice for BCSS on that committee but I think the fundamental point should be that CITES doesn't work for plants that can be easily raised in captivity from seed.
Ed

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Stuart
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by Stuart »

I've obtained many CITES permits over the years, they always have to state that the plants were 'artificially propagated' i.e. nursery produced. CITES is meant to help preserve plants in habitat. Plants that have been 'artificially propagated' reduce demand for habitat plants and I feel they should not be subject to CITES restrictions. Maybe Ian would like to do some lobbying and fix this? I've only ever had CITES permits for nursery grown plants, all pointless paperwork. When I hand CITES permits to UK Customs, they don't seem to know what to do with them, sometimes they hand them back to me, sometimes they keep them.

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Pattock
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Re: Illegal Cacti and the BCSS

Post by Pattock »

Phil_SK wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:17 am
KarlR wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:08 ama blanket ban on growing any Mexican species described after 1997
Mexican cacti discovered after 21 November 1997
I know it's not the point you're making but it needs highlighting - plants described by a certain date might have been in cultivation for years beforehand.
And well-documented as being in cultivation and that they were named at a later date, surely? Those who acquired descendants or clones of those plants should have kept some proof of that, especially if they acquired them after 1997.

For those saying nobody has bothered documenting their legal acquisitions for the last 23 years despite the clear obligation in international law to do so - tough. If you want to change the law then lobby for that. If you want to break the law... you don't get to exhibit your criminal intent in a BCSS show or swap or sell them. Which is about the likely extent of your punishment.
Acid John wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:53 am I do hope that Bradleya doesn't fuel a desire for new species by publishing any new descriptions from Mexico. Escobaria abdita was shown in Bradleya 30, surely that was a wrong thing for the society to do?
What a shame it would be if publishing new species had to stop because of the uncontrolled illicit lusts of the vilest collectors.
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