Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 20:42:19 +0100 From: Paul Temple <paultemple@ecologycal.demon.co.uk> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg1221$foo@default> Subject: Why the imperative...
With reference to ...
>"Why the imperative of bringing new wild-sourced variation into
cultivation?".
Because, in my view, there have been plants in cultivation that
originated from a single collection, sometimes of a single plant. Thus
the variation is limited and can not be said to represent even a
significant portion of what might be normal variation in the wild
community. For conservation puposes, a wider variation (genes) would be
a safer bet!
>How does one determine if a species or variant is not already in
cultivation?
Good question. I'm not sure. Personally I would tend to rely on
knowing who are the "experts" in the field. Were I to discover a
Nepenthes I thought might be new (no chance of this ever happening), I
would begin by asking my friends in Australasia and Germany who between
them grow alot, if not all, of what is known. Beyond the "experts",
there are formal registration schemes such as the UK's National
Collections, where the species grown are recorded annually by a central
agency. Various countries have schemes similar to that of the UK.
>Does a state of "securely in cultivation" truly exist?
It obviously depends on the efinition of "secure". I would propose that
we CP growers, especially working through the coordination of the CP
societies, would find it fairly easy to agree which species were we
thought were securely in cultivation. But clearly such a status as
"secure" is subjective until people create criteria. We could easily
mimic the internationally accepted criteria for endangered species with
a new set of definitions for "cultivation status", with criteria
something along the lines of "Common", "Rare", "No Longer in
Cultivation", "Never in cultivation", etc., though these are only my
poor attempt at quickly showing roughly what might be categorised.
>If so, how does one determine this state has been met?
By defining measureable criteria. For example, if we define such a
thing as "Secure in cultivation", we may decide (just thinking out loud)
that we measure this by finding that the plant appears in more than 100
growers' lists and that a percentage of those listholders declare that
they have no difficulkty growing the species, that their plants reliably
produce viable seed, and that the growers report no losses of the
species from the collection (no deaths) with a specific period (for
example within the last 3 years).
>Do you mean to say that all species and every variant (of CP, or more?)
>found in the wild should be brought into cultivation and proliferated
until
>all are securely in cultivation?
I'm not sure if I meant this and, anyway, it shouldn't matter what I
think so much as what we all think having discussed it. But the
question is still good. So my answer is realy a statement about what
already happens. For the UK National Collections, the Collection Owners
are required to have a goal of expanding their collections (through
legal means). Thus logically (just call me spock!), this must translate
as having a goal to eventually include all known species and variants,
hybrids, cultivars, etc. (this is limited by what exactly each national
Collection comprises - for example some4 Naqtional Collections only
collect species while others only cultivars, and so on ...).
>I don't think we need to "protect" plants from natural stresses in
habitat.
I'm not sure if I agree or disagree (there was an excellent point about
root stress through transplantation being potentially more damaging than
climate stress) but I can give examples of plants that could easily die
out entirely as a resut of a single misplaced hurricane, a single period
of drouht, etc.. I agree with the point about not trying to
artificially control the ecosystem (i.e. preventing forest fires is
generally a bad idea, some would say catastrophic as areas of natural
forest fire seem destined to suffer a fire despite our efforts, and
delaying it just makes things worse!), but this therefore increases the
importance of the discussion regarding the removal of very rare
specimens from an area facing stress. To rescue by cultivation in
collections is not to tamper with the wild population. The only risk
from such rescues is by the potential to deplete the natural population.
Again - just thinking aloud. All simply my view (until I change my
mind).
Cheers
paul
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:35:07 PST