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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"?<br>
Does anyone see the hypocrisy in passing laws to prevent a citizen from
harvesting a plant while allowing a developer to bulldoze the habitat?
<br>
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". <br>
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. <br>
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. <br>
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? <br>
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. <br>
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.<br>
Sorry for ranting on but it is winter, the season for ranting in the
frigid Northeast. <br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
At 08:48 AM 1/4/2008, cafesombra@aol.com wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">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.<br>
<br><br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Bob Beyfuss <rlb14@cornell.edu><br>
To: cafesombra@aol.com; MPWG@lists.plantconservation.org<br>
Sent: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 4:22 pm<br>
Subject: Re: [MPWG] addendum Re: Saving Plants That Save Lives<br><br>
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. <br><br>
<br>
At 03:55 PM 1/3/2008,
<a href="mailto:cafesombra@aol.com">cafesombra@aol.com</a>
wrote:<br><br><blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">
<dl>
<dd>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.<br><br>
</dl>Before anyone criticizes this sentence, yes there are laws
protecting plants. Not enough, and not well enforced.
<br><br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: <a href="mailto:cafesombra@aol.com">cafesombra@aol.com</a><br>
To:
<a href="mailto:MPWG@lists.plantconservation.org">
MPWG@lists.plantconservation.org</a><br>
Sent: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 3:45 pm<br>
Subject: Re: Saving Plants That Save Lives<br><br>
Hello,<br>
"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.<br>
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.<br>
Jennifer
<a href="http://www.herbalistswithoutborders.org">
www.herbalistswithoutborders.org</a> <br><br>
<br>
-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Olivia Kwong <<a href="mailto:plant@plantconservation.org">
plant@plantconservation.org</a>><br>
To:
<a href="mailto:mpwg@lists.plantconservation.org">
mpwg@lists.plantconservation.org</a><br>
Sent: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 10:53 am<br>
Subject: [MPWG] NEWS: Saving Plants That Save Lives<br><br>
<br>
<tt>
<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080101202622.htm">
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080101202622.htm</a><br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
Saving Plants That Save Lives<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2008) - Poor or non-existent collection controls
are <br><br>
<br><br>
threatening the survival of many of the plant species used in traditional
<br><br>
<br><br>
and modern medicines. Some estimates indicate that 15,000 of the 50,000 -
<br><br>
<br><br>
70,000 plant species used for medicinal purposes and mostly collected
from <br><br>
<br><br>
the wild may be threatened, many as a direct result of unsustainable
<br><br>
<br><br>
collection practices.<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
See the link above for the full article.<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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