Diane - it was an APHIS inspector who told me that about Czech phytos (a
voice on the phone) - I have no independent information. It was a
response
to my question about why plants coming in with a valid phyto needed to be
reinspected.

At the risk of exhausting my welcome, I want to make some (ultimately)
positive remarks about this question of regulating and inspecting plant
imports. I do have to say, first, that it appears the system doesn't
function too well. Incoming legal plant material appears to be going
largely uninspected, despite the apparent fact that foreign export
regulation (issuing of phytos) is at best an uneven process. Incoming
illegal imports probably largely go undetected, because the first line of
defense - identifying a package that needs inspection - presumably depends
on the US postal and Customs services doing their jobs with greater zeal
than, say, Debbie's informant says they do. And if incoming illegal
imports
all became legal via the following of existing regulations (remember,
import
permits are free, though phytos usually are not), the system would be even
more overwhelmed than it is.

One tactic, which seems to be the currently preferred one, is to threaten
people with large fines if they get caught. My previous life as an
economist leads me to observe that the expected cost of smuggling is
measured by multiplying the probability of getting caught by the fine
levied
if one is caught. Playing with some arbitrary numbers here, if the
probability of getting caught is as high as 1% (I'm guessing it's much
lower) and the expected fine is $2000, the expected penalty for smuggling
is
(.01)(2000) = $20, which renders the smuggling of a single plant
borderline
not-worthwhile - but if the probability of getting caught is 0.1%, the
expected cost is only $2 (versus whatever the perceived value of the
smuggled material is). A very high fine (say, $250,000) should definitely
discourage small-time smuggling, but only if people know with certainty
that
it will be levied if they're caught - and from what I hear from the
grapevine, penalties generally levied on individuals are much lower than
that. The only people who are discouraged from smuggling by POSSIBLE high
fines are the same types who won't fly, viz, people who are so terrified
by
the low-probability high-cost outcome that they don't look beyond that to
see that the activity is (alas in the case of plants) relatively safe.

The bottom line is that a positive, energetic, informative public
education
campaign is about your only rational line of defense when you're woefuly
underfunded and understaffed. It's far more likely to get the attention
of
a rational individual than is threatening them with high fines - it
appeals
to their better natures, it's cheap, and it makes clear for them why what
they're doing is wrong.

And them's my thoughts this fine morning, and there I will end it.

Ellen

Ellen Hornig
Seneca Hill Perennials
3712 County Route 57
Oswego NY 13126 USA
http://www.senecahillperennials.com/
----- Original Message -----

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