[MPWG] addendum Re: Saving Plants That Save Lives

Fri Jan 4 10:10:22 CST 2008

With all respect to to the good people who read this list I will continue 
my rant. I did not write this but I often repeat the following quote. "Laws 
are best explained, interpreted and applied by those whose chief interests 
and abilities lie in perverting, subverting and obscuring them". Certainly 
we need laws to protect society but they need to be well crafted so as to 
actually accomplish their objective. My experience is that many laws 
designed with good intentions to protect Natural Resources end up being 
used for exploitation by some of the interests who obey "the letter of the 
law" but not necessarily the intent. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote " Laws 
that men cannot and will not obey only serve to bring all laws into 
contempt". Laws often allow people to dodge responsibility for their own 
actions or inactions. Instead of individuals being responsible for what 
happens on public or private land, laws make it "the government's problem". 
Citizens need to take a far more active role in protecting our resources 
and not just leave it up to the "officials". Laws make it easy for people 
to abandon responsibility. Is it only wrong to destroy a natural resource 
because it is illegal? If so, is it OK to destroy a natural resource if we 
can figure out a way to do it "legally"?
Does anyone see the hypocrisy in passing laws to prevent a citizen from 
harvesting a plant while allowing a developer to bulldoze the habitat?
We also need to consider the price of enforcement. To begin to enforce 
current laws protecting wild ginseng, for example, in NY would require the 
presence of literally hundreds of law enforcement officers on every Mt top 
and valley in NY that harbors wild ginseng. Should society in general be 
required to pay for this?  Law abiding citizens do not need this 
enforcement and the bad guys quickly figure out how to get around them, so 
what is the point? I would rather see the money spent to educate the 
average citizen on why it is so important to protect and preserve rather 
than cops to enforce laws no one is even aware of. Recently published 
research on this topic points out that offering "legal protection" for 
plants without providing funding to actually provide protection is worse 
than doing nothing at all. As for " in some underdeveloped nations the 
caring and nurturing stewards of the land are starting to become 
radicalized, taking up arms themselves to enforce laws the authorities 
can't or won't.  Surely, this is not an acceptable development." I am not 
so sure this is so unacceptable, at least in principle. I am not advocating 
people take up arms but citizens,  need to do something other than pass the 
buck to "the government".
On a related issue from a previous post, the comparison of protecting elk 
from hunting by Native Americans who are "allowed" to do so was mentioned 
in this context. This reinforces my point of "it is OK if it is "legal". 
Before we had "laws" protecting the elk Native Americans did this pretty 
well themselves. The law "allowing" them to do so, only serves to abdicate 
the responsibility of why it should not be done.
On a policy note, I think we have made serious mistakes in "lumping" 
together management issues regarding Natural Resources protection. I don't 
think you can manage elk in Montana the same way you manage wild ginseng in 
Kentucky or fish in the Great lakes. To try to do so trivializes the issues.
NY State just created a brand new bureaucracy called "Office of Invasive 
Species". This new department is charged with dealing with the nebulous 
issue of "invasives" which includes everything from viruses such as West 
Nile Virus, to bacteria such the cause of Lyme disease, to mollusks such as 
Zebra mussels, to insects such as the Sirex wood wasp, to terrestrial 
plants such as mile a minute vine, aquatic plants such as water chestnut 
and on and on. It is very easy to jump on this bandwagon because everyone 
has something they don't like. The only thing these organisms have in 
common is that most of us don't like them and worse horrors, they are not 
"native".  I propose a more realistic agency of "Dealing with Foreign Stuff 
most of us don't Like" . Of course the American way of "Dealing with 
Foreign Stuff most of us don't Like" is to get rid of them. Businesses who 
specialize in killing "stuff we don't like" such as herbicide manufacturers 
love this type of legislation.(more laws)  It certainly does sell their 
product when school kids or the Nature Conservancy can get government 
grants to spray glyphosate or other herbicides on "foreign plants most of 
us don't like". Do these kids really have any idea what they are doing 
besides killing something someone has told them they don't like?
Anyone who has pulled weeds by hand for several hours quickly realizes that 
it is much easier to spray a herbicide but is it really the same result? 
One law I actually would like to see would require resource managers to 
accurately predict what will replace the plants they destroy once they are 
destroyed. If that cannot be determined I question the killing in the first 
place. Assuming "superior" native plants will replace "evil" exotics once 
the bad guys are killed is naive at best. The law of unintended 
consequences has merit.
As for the evil "exotics", without being aware of historical context no 
ecologist can distinguish between a native plant and an exotic one when 
studying an ecosystem.  Some of our best medicinal plants (this is a 
medicinal plants listserve) and most of our food are exotics. True, some 
are potentially "invasive" but I don't want to see laws "banning" exotics 
simply because they are exotic but this is indeed happening all over the US 
right now.
Sorry for ranting on but it is winter, the season for ranting in the frigid 
Northeast.

At 08:48 AM 1/4/2008, cafesombra at aol.com wrote:
>While I see your point, I don't think abandoning the rule of law will make 
>things better.  For now, laws that encourage commerce are well-enforced, 
>while laws that inhibit commerce are not.  But times have changed.  Laws 
>uber-enabling commerce are based on a false reality where no forest is 
>threatened, no resource is scarce, nothing has value in light of COMMON 
>heritage, and global warming is a left-wing scam.  The people who nurture 
>and protect plants are in fact not effective when faced with laws that 
>enable commerce come hell or high water -- unless they can somehow slip 
>under the radar and mind their own plot of ground in a bubble all their 
>own.  That's very noble, we all hope and need for private property owners 
>to be good stewards of the land.  Unfortunately, most people are not 
>private property owners.  Owning land is not a prerequisite to caring 
>about wildlife, or to needing wild resou! rces -- and people who do not 
>own land deserve assurance that society at large is protecting the common 
>good now and for the future.  So we need laws to protect wild 
>resources.  Voluntary policies and "codes of ethics" are even more 
>unenforcible than actual laws -- especially in the business environment 
>where good-old-friends networks run things. When "it's all about 
>relationships," who wants to be the whistle blower and become an outcast 
>from the inner circle?  I believe that instead of scoffing at unenforcible 
>laws we need to seriously take on the challenge of how to enforce 
>them.  We don't see it (yet) in the US, but in some underdeveloped nations 
>the caring and nurturing stewards of the land are starting to become 
>radicalized, taking up arms themselves to enforce laws the authorities 
>can't or won't.  Surely, this is not an acceptable development.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Bob Beyfuss <rlb14 at cornell.edu>
>To: cafesombra at aol.com; MPWG at lists.plantconservation.org
>Sent: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 4:22 pm
>Subject: Re: [MPWG] addendum Re: Saving Plants That Save Lives
>
>Laws don't protect plants, in fact laws protecting plants that are 
>completely unenforceable, as most plant laws are, only serve to make the 
>plants more valuable and do far more harm than good. Where is the evidence 
>that any law protecting any commercially used plant has actually 
>accomplished that goal?   People who nurture and use plants protect them 
>far more than any laws.
>
>
>At 03:55 PM 1/3/2008, <mailto:cafesombra at aol.com>cafesombra at aol.com wrote:
>
>>It's a crime that saving the plants that save lives is a voluntary act, 
>>if you think you might want to, and allowing unrestricted trade of 
>>unsustainable ingredients is protected by law.
>>
>>Before anyone criticizes this sentence, yes there are laws protecting 
>>plants.  Not enough, and not well enforced.
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: <mailto:cafesombra at aol.com>cafesombra at aol.com
>>To: <mailto:MPWG at lists.plantconservation.org>MPWG at lists.plantconservation.org
>>Sent: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 3:45 pm
>>Subject: Re: Saving Plants That Save Lives
>>
>>Hello,
>>"Unsustainable collection practices" (which we've been blaming for years 
>>now) may be threatening / endangering plants.  But what causes 
>>unsustainable collection?  Why are people pulling too many plants out of 
>>the wild without implementing appropriate replanting and/or protection 
>>measures?  Could it be that unsustainable contracting for commercial 
>>ingredients is the culprit?   Business people, especially the big users 
>>(I would say "players," if creating a sustainable future were a game) can 
>>point the finger at collectors 'til the cowslip comes home.  But business 
>>people are the ones paying the collectors.  Now that distribution and 
>>product placement make it difficult if not impossible for all but the 
>>bigger players to get into the commerce game, we can no longer say that 
>>consumers demand it so, let's supply what the people want.  Consumers 
>>wander down the aisles choosing from amongst what is there, and if one 
>>product disappears and an! other replaces it, they still choose from 
>>what's there.  They still tend to choose what is placed right in front of 
>>their faces, as all informed business people know.  Imagine a world where 
>>no one can find any non-organic products except by shunning the stores 
>>and going to their local chemical factory farms to support the local 
>>underdogs. It's not going to do your company any good to "give the people 
>>what they want" if the environment is ruined and the source runs out in 
>>the process -- unless you are in it for the quick return rather than the 
>>long haul.
>>I may be preaching to the choir, assuming that signing up for an email 
>>list affirms one's commitment to a sustainable future.  So, if everyone 
>>on this list is already perfect, how do we reach those who do not 
>>voluntarily choose to do the right thing?  Because that is what we need 
>>to do.  It's a crime that saving the plants that save lives is a 
>>voluntary act, if you think you might want to, and allowing unrestricted 
>>trade of unsustainable ingredients is protected by law.
>>Jennifer 
>><http://www.herbalistswithoutborders.org>www.herbalistswithoutborders.org
>>
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Olivia Kwong <<mailto:plant at plantconservation.org> 
>>plant at plantconservation.org>
>>To: <mailto:mpwg at lists.plantconservation.org>mpwg at lists.plantconservation.org
>>Sent: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:53 am
>>Subject: [MPWG] NEWS: Saving Plants That Save Lives
>>
>>
>><http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080101202622.htm>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080101202622.htm
>>
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>>Saving Plants That Save Lives
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>>ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2008) - Poor or non-existent collection controls are
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>>threatening the survival of many of the plant species used in traditional
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>>and modern medicines. Some estimates indicate that 15,000 of the 50,000 -
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>>70,000 plant species used for medicinal purposes and mostly collected from
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>>the wild may be threatened, many as a direct result of unsustainable
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>>collection practices.
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>>See the link above for the full article.
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>>_______________________________________________
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>>
>>PCA's Medicinal Plant Working Group mailing list
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>>
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>>Any advice given on this list regarding diagnosis or treatments etc. 
>>reflects ONLY the opinion of the individual who posts the message. The 
>>information contained in posts is not intended nor implied to be a 
>>substitute for professional medical advice relative to your specific 
>>medical condition or question. All medical and other healthcare 
>>information that is discussed on this list should be carefully reviewed 
>>by the individual reader and their qualified healthcare professional. 
>>Posts do not reflect any official opinions or positions of the Plant 
>>Conservation Alliance.
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>Disclaimer
>Any advice given on this list regarding diagnosis or treatments etc. 
>reflects ONLY the opinion of the individual who posts the message. The 
>information contained in posts is not intended nor implied to be a 
>substitute for professional medical advice relative to your specific 
>medical condition or question. All medical and other healthcare 
>information that is discussed on this list should be carefully reviewed by 
>the individual reader and their qualified healthcare professional. Posts 
>do not reflect any official opinions or positions of the Plant 
>Conservation Alliance.
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