Opposition to Ex-Situ Conservation (was Sharing seeds of rare plants)
Monica Swartz (Tue, 11 Nov 2014 19:13:22 PST)

Jane, after sending my last email about the US Endangered Species
Act, I realized I failed to address your question about practical
experience with this issue. I have had opposition to any captive
cultivation of rare plants from people like the NRDC lecturer you
mentioned. In California, for example, the California Native Plant
Society takes the position that all such efforts should be restricted
to qualified biologists working with the regulatory agencies (see
http://www.cnps.org/cnps/archive/ex_situ.php). Does CNPS decide who
is qualified? Some of the best botanists I know have no formal
degrees in the field, would they qualify?
I started a group of'"amateurs" (all expert native plant
horticulturalists) that grow rare plants for producing seed for
reintroduction to the wild. The group received some funding from
USFWS and was advised by me, a Professor of Conservation Biology.
There was enormous opposition to this from various people in the
environmental community that I still fail to understand. Even a
botanist working for the state wildlife agency vehemently opposed the
group. Many of our members dropped out of the projects in horror at
the reactions.
I have worked with many USFWS biologists and all believed that
without "nonprofessional" engagement in conservation, we have little
chance of avoiding extinction of many rare plants. I have not found
that this belief is held by all state wildlife biologists or
conservation NGOs.
monica