Convention on Biological Diversity

Robert Pries robertpries@embarqmail.com
Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:35:41 PDT
I believe all sides in this conversation wish to preserve diversity, but It seems to me the real problems are habitat loss and a lack of knowledge of the natural world. Even though our individual solutions cause each other a good deal of frustration and extra work our real enemy is ignorance. 
If I remember correctly The National Gardening Association claims that 60% of Americans have Gardening as a hobby. But they also speak about the average gardener spending on average $70 a year on plants. Personally I would not think of those people as gardeners. I fear that gardening is slowly dying. Appreciating nature is hard for those that are never really exposed to it and that seems to be a larger cohort all the time. Plant Societies have largely been declining. The idea of a liberal education seems to be disappearing. Despite all these negatives I do think the situation is retreivable. But we need to find more and better ways of helping each other and bringing more people to plants. I am constantly searching for ideas along these lines. 

----- Original Message -----
From: "James Waddick" <jwaddick@kc.rr.com>
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, September 9, 2011 3:59:56 PM
Subject: Re: [pbs] Convention on Biological Diversity

Dear Boyce,
	I was waiting for someone to respond to Tom's passionate 
reply. I hope you are not bruised and bleeding after his hearty 
lashing. I am sure it IS NOT personal, but reflects a strong reaction 
to the professional botanic garden staffs* in many locations around 
the world and not just that of the Chicago BG.

Dear Tom,
	Bravo.

	I think your comments are very heartfelt and worth pursuing. 
You as a professional nursery owner (mostly) and plant collector are 
really caught between the 'authorities' who can impose well meaning 
regulations that only slightly affect their own limitations, but do 
grievous harm to your commercial pursuit and activities.

	Odd that both sides want the same sort of 'conservation', but 
see things so very differently.

	The CBD is well meaning, but distorted almost from Day 1 and 
remaining problematical. Whether you conform to it or defy it , the 
results seem the same: denying some experts the right to grow and 
distribute plants that would benefit from such propagation and 
distribution.

	In situ conservation may be impossible for many organism, but 
denying their propagation and distribution from captive material only 
exacerbates the situation. The rarer the plant, the higher the value 
until the last individual is wildly precious, but has no value if it 
cannot be propagated and sold.

	Surely there are some middle grounds.

	Some might suggest that an organization like PBS or NARGS or 
AGS or even AHS and RHS  campaign to resolve the issue of propagation 
and distribution, but there seem to be complicities within 
complicities and well meaning do-gooders preventing all the most 
desirable results.

	I don't have a clue to even an approach to an answer, but the 
current situation seems foolish at best.

	Tom and Boyce can you suggest the first step to resolve this? 
A step that shows cooperation between both the regulators and 
authorities, and the growers and gardeners who might implement some 
changes?

			Best		Jim W.

* as well as national regulatory agencies, greed and the status quo
-- 
Dr. James W. Waddick
8871 NW Brostrom Rd.
Kansas City Missouri 64152-2711
USA
Ph.    816-746-1949
Zone 5 Record low -23F
	Summer 100F +





More information about the pbs mailing list