Preservationism gone mad (was: rare plants

Nature is a very high impact journal and it uses its position to stir
up controversy. Fair enough, but it would be a shame if it were
allowed to get away with publishing an article distinguishable from
gibberish only after several passes through Google's Chinese-English
translation service. It could do no harm, surely, to write to the
editor of Nature on this point.

In addition to the flaws that Aaron and Max have pointed out, there
are some disturbing passages in the article by Shirey and Lamberti.

"The FWS and other government agencies face an enormous challenge in
trying to manage biodiversity loss in the face of climate change with
inadequate resources. Individuals and citizen groups should not take
the lead on this because of the risks associated with introducing any
species. Instead, the FWS should carry out controlled pilot studies
first, possibly using the resources of volunteers."

In other words, don't worry folks, the Feds have it all under
control. You guys just sit back and let us experts sort this one out.
Are they insane? The authors are seriously suggesting that the people
who care most about the long term survival of plant species diversity
should just take a back seat and wait for government agencies to deal
with it. When you wait for the Federal government to look after the
environment you end up with Illinois.

Or how about this one?

"The agency could also restrict the ability of consumers to buy
hybrids bred from endangered species. Currently, these are not
formally regulated — allowing breeders to cultivate the unique
characteristics of rare plants while evading endangered-species laws."

Excellent idea! Let's criminalise anyone attempting to propagate and
distribute rare plant species, taking advantage of the fact that
there is a market for interesting variants of these species. These so-
called nurserymen are obviously evil. Good one, guys.

Finally, my favourite.

"About half the endangered plants available to buyers in the United
States are sold in states outside their native range. Some are even
sold overseas."

Oooh, surely not overseas? Isn't that where Osama Bin Laden comes
from? I mean absolutely no disrespect to the USA or to my many
American friends when I point out that ex-situ conservation of plants
in the botanical gardens of Europe has been going on since before the
USA existed.

The cretins who wrote this article really need to think about what
they want to achieve. Are they trying to preserve ever tinier
populations of plants in their 'native' ranges (what do they mean by
that anyway - native now, native before man, native since the last
glaciation?) or would they like rare and endangered species to
survive? If the former, Nature should be ashamed of publishing the
article; if the latter, they should realise that gardeners,
nurserymen and passionate plantspeople are allies not enemies.

Tom

Message: 6
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:19:16 -0800 (PST)
From: aaron floden <aaron_floden@yahoo.com>
To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [pbs] rare plants - Nature article
Message-ID: <292559.68202.qm@web34303.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

? ? ? ? ? ? I agree Max, I don?t
see how this article was seen as fit for publication as it loosely links
together completely different issues merely by mention ? Melaleuca
tied to the
30 billion mentioned as damage caused by non-native plants on the
cultivation
of non-native plants (crops). They don't seem to mention the
cultivation of sugarcane in the Everglades which damaged that
ecologically sensitive area far more than Melaluca. Nevermind the
amount of native plants and habitat destroyed by CRP programs, grain
cultivation, soy, etc. But, since it was featured in Nature and
subsequently on NPR I bet it won?t be long before there is a new gov.
agency
set up for exactly what these two were writing about.

??????????? First they
claim that 10% of the 753 federally listed plants are available for
sale for in-state
purchase, then go on to say that most of these sales are illegal, as
more than
50 sellers offering the plants for interstate
sales only 4 had the proper license. Seems there is disconnect
between the two
as in-state and interstate are completely different issues as the
authors later note. The authors then complain that half
of the endangered plants are available for sale outside their native
state, or,
almighty benevolent government forbid, overseas?. Example:
Asteropyrum asterias
native to a small area of Mexico
and Texas can
be bought as cultivars in at least 6 states and several countries!
They also
say they discovered that Brighamia was available for only 29.95
online yet is
known from only 10 wild plants. And, Echinacea tennessensis is now so
readily
available that it might be removed from the federal list! They warn
that a
recent hybrid between it and E. purpurea might infiltrate it genes.
Nevertheless,
E. tennessensis occurs with two other Echinacea species in its native
range.
Echinacea taxa are nearly as promiscuous as Aquilegia and
phylogenetic analyses
have suggested that many taxa are merely ecoptypes. It was offered as
a hybrid
in the nursery trade to circumvent the stupid law that limited its
cultivation
and nearly doomed it to extinction.
??????????? I guess the number one issue is that the nursery trade
and individuals who propagate plants have been far more effective at
increasing the quantity of a rare taxon and making it available in
cultivation than the government has in its 40 year existence of the
federal program. The argument could also be made that the government
created many rare taxa; the bald eagle, American barberry, the wolves
out west, etc......

??????????? To combat potential hybridization of
hybrids with endangered taxa they suggest that the sale of hybrids
with an
endangered species as a parent be banned.

?Aaron

--- On Tue, 2/22/11, Max Withers <maxwithers@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Max Withers <maxwithers@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [pbs] Changing seasons + rare plants
To: pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2011, 1:10 PM

On another topic, I wanted to note a somewhat confusing article in
the LA
Times about a call for enhanced regulation of the trade in rare plants.
Excuse me if this was discussed here before, but I just noticed it:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/…
colonization-20110129

The equally confusing Nature article referred to is here (for
subscribers):
http://nature.com/nature/journal/…

The argument about Brighamia insignis is nonsensical -- if ex-situ
conservation is the only chance of a species's survival, shouldn't
that be
encouraged? I'll avoid further pontification, but I did think it
interesting
that Nature saw fit to publish this.

Max Withers
Oakland CA

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