There is no purpose to most CITES restrictions. They are a bureaucracy set in place that has much momentum and little insight. In my opinion, they do more harm than good and are likely to cause more extinctions than they prevent. In my work with the American chestnut, the import restrictions prevent us from importing all material from blight resistant species because it might harbor the chestnut blight. That is what we are trying to correct and they are over a hundred years too late for that! A similar irony is the mindless bureaucracy of the US congress. They believed they could get more votes if they were "HARD ON CRIME" so they put the pot smokers in jail and ruined their lives and careers. So are we going to give those poor people their lives back now that we are legalizing pot? If entitled white males like me feel helpless when confronted by bureaucratic indifference, I can't imagine how the underprivileged must feel. Sorry, I got carried away there. -----Original Message----- From: pbs [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Lee Poulsen Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 10:50 PM To: Pacific Bulb Society Subject: Re: [pbs] new member . introduction On Feb 10, 2015, at 10:48 AM, Mario Klesczewski <mario_kle@yahoo.fr> wrote: > sending seeds of interesting (non protected) species too I have a question regarding Mario's comment here. I would like to know the purpose for not allowing the sending or trading of seeds of protected (CITES, I presume) species, especially those that are produced by plants grown in personal gardens or collections? I can sort of, kind of, understand possible reasons for disallowing the collecting or distribution of seeds collected from wild, protected species (although I would point to the example of South Africa's Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden of growing and providing seedlings of Clivia mirabilis to anyone who ordered them everywhere in the world shortly after this new and rare species was discovered as a brilliant way to immediately diminish the problem of poachers decimating the wild-growing populations of rare plants). But seeds collected from your own personal non-wild plants?! Who came up with that idea? And why, oh, why? --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m