Count me as one who would like to do the right thing all of the time. But it was interesting to read the discussion that accompanied the several entries in the Federal Register when the small seed lots permit was being brought into existence, and then see what resulted. One of the concerns or issues that kept being discussed was that the best enforcement method would be making it in the best interests of the importers to WANT to follow the rules. And one conclusion that was mentioned several times was that the best way to do this was to make it worth any rare plant growers while to exert a little effort to help APHIS/PPQ keep out pests to the fullest extent possible. It has been discussed here and in other forums over the years that no rare plant grower could conceivably want to import diseases or pests. They want their own plants to be as healthy as that of any commercial farmer or plant grower. No one wants their rare plants (or common ones for that matter) to get sick, die, or be eaten up. The discussers also acknowledged that the more expensive or more unnecessarily difficult they made the import process, the greater chance they created of causing importers to smuggle in something that was most likely safe, but not worth the money or red tape involved to do it the right way. We're not talking about plants that are already proven dangerous, but in many cases ones that have been imported before and pose no problem whatsoever. And even in the case of potentially dangerous plants, I think efforts have been made to put a process in place so that legitimate importing can be done. However, I have found the government to be as guilty of causing unnecessary problems as the importers might be. For example, someone mentioned citrus (and the associated citrus greening problem). I have liked growing citrus for many years. And I discovered that there is a process in place to get new species or varieties imported. There is a certain citrus variety I discovered during a trip to Japan. It was unlike anything I have ever seen available in the U.S. I searched everywhere for legitimate sources in the U.S. (and I'm pretty good at that) to no avail. Then I found out about the process. I submitted my request, sent various emails and regular emails out several times over several years, and to this date I have never gotten even an acknowledgment that any of my emails or mail had even been received, let alone a response or answer. Since then I've checked several times and gone on extensive Google hunts and discovered that others have wanted this variety imported and sent through the de-virusing process that California is charged with providing, also to no avail, and that someone somewhere finally decided to and managed to smuggle it in anyway. I am in no way defending that action. However, I feel justified in saying that the government agents or agencies involved have no one to blame but themselves. If they had just bothered to even respond once to any of these individuals, maybe to explain that it is impossible to import and give the reasons, then quite a few, possible everyone that wanted it, would not have thought about trying to smuggle it in. Since I myself never got a response, I have only been able to invent an explanation for the nonresponsiveness of the agencies involved. Because I have seen that they have been importing other varieties and they have all been, as far as I can tell, varieties that large commercial growers would be the most interested in, I have surmised that for some reason, the agency doesn't care about private individuals even though their charge is to serve everyone. The information I read was that anyone could request varieties that the agency should import. Since there is no charge, it can't be that the large commercial growers were able to pay the fees that individual requestors couldn't--since there were no fees involved. So in my own mind, I blame it on a very strong bias towards commercial growers by the gov't agencies to the point of ignoring individual or dooryard fruit growers. (And I've personally witnessed this attitude in a handful of other examples as well with other types of fruits, so my belief isn't completely unsupported). I think the process leading to, and the resulting rules for small seed lots import permits turned out pretty well. I try to use it every time I bring in seeds; however I can't control what the exporter does. There are a number of very legitimate exporters in other countries who have been exporting seeds to the U.S. and elsewhere for decades up until APHIS decided to enforce an available but unused restriction on unpermitted seed imports, who don't like the change, even as minimal as it has become. What I don't understand is that if the exporter fails to follow the rules, why must APHIS/PPQ resort to *destroying* the shipment? It is completely unneeded. And kind of ridiculous when it involves very rare species that really need to be grown by more people before they possibly go extinct. (For example, Worsleya procera.) Sure, some people live far away from inspection stations. But some of us don't. If they called me up, I would drive over and either pay to send it back to the importer or pay some nominal (not an outrageous fee like Australia charges) to have the inspectors look it over and check for the things the exporter was supposed to have checked for--especially for something rare and/or very hard to obtain. There really is no need whatsoever to destroy a non-dangerous import simply because some aspect of the import rules weren't followed correctly, but could be resolved safely at the inspection station at this end instead. Of course, then there are the plant items that are sent to (in my area) the Huntington or the San Diego or Los Angeles Zoos. In some cases, those places have never grown the item, and don't know how to. While there are some people on this list who are expert at growing them and getting them to thrive, even being some of the most knowledgable about it. But the gov't agencies don't seem to have that as one of the options they are willing to try. Why? What you're not ever ever going to do is get Americans, in particular, to stop wanting some non-dangerous plant species or variety that they really want to grow. I think every government agency should attempt to try to satisfy that as much as is reasonably possible, especially since all gov't agency employees are actually employees of the citizens who pay the taxes that pay their salaries. I have a hard time understanding why some agencies seem to not acknowledge that fact. My work is ultimately paid for by federal taxes, and we *always* keep that in mind. In fact, the entity I work for makes it a budget line item of every project we do to spend, I think it's 15 or 20%, on public outreach for every project we do, even though public outreach doesn't help us complete or accomplish any of the projects we do. We know where our money comes from and want the taxpayers to know and hopefully approve of what we're doing with their money always. I think you will find that virtually everyone in this group would be more than happy to try to come up with solutions that everyone including the agencies like APHIS/PPQ could be optimally happy with. (No one is ever going to get 100% of what they want of course. I acknowledge that.) As far as I have experienced all the plant people I've known want to do the right thing. They don't like when that is made prohibitively difficult or expensive for no good reason. --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a WDA wrote: > It only takes one person to create a movement and the strength of the movement can create change. As plant collectors in a public forum we should collectively be worried about those individuals who do not advocate to the legal method of plant importation. If we police ourselves then there is less tendency for the government to do it for us. I for one do not want to have my narcissus bulbs die away because of a plant pest native to the origins of the plant material. Nor would I want my neighbor to introduce plant pests across the fence because it's cheaper and easier to bypass the system. I certainly would not buy from a nursery that advocates by passing the system. But that's just me. One person. > Bill > >