Re: IN VITRO stuff

Michael Hasemann (jmh@tko.vtt.fi)
Mon, 9 Jan 1995 13:54:27 +0200 (EET)

Dear Joachim,

I am sorry that you got me wrong (as Andreas). I simply do not care
if or if not you or anybody earns a golden nose propagating 'In Vitro
stuff' with or without support from Universities, NSF, NSA, NRA, or
whatsoever.

I mind if things here get 'too commercial'. I do not mind references
to sources or people offering their stuff for trade or sale. Parti-
cular, if astronomical 'black market' prices are requested.

>
> Dear Michael,
>
> please think, before you bring your 'Internet-Stuff' about 'In Vitro stuff'.
> All the people, who I know, do progagate the In Vitro plants by their own
> and not with any supply of Universities and I don't want to tell you, how
> expensive it is. In the time, when you are going maybe with your
> girlfriend to the cinema, they sit at their hood and propagate the
> plant-material and I think, it is quite legitime (maybe not about
> internet) to sell it, to get back the uncost.
Yepp, nobody forces you to take these costs. It's your own pleasure. I
have mine indeed going out with my girlfriend. :-)

>
> They do it because of private interest, but please tell me a better way,
> to save endangered species in the wild! Plant-hunting will not be any
> more interesting, if you can get all the stuff for some $ out of In Vitro
> cultures. Who is anymore interested to hunt N. rajah, if you can get it
> complete with CITES to buy everywhere.
This is hypocritical. Honestly, if you make xxxx bucks
by selling N.yyyyyy it is first of all the money you get for an extremely
seldom plant. Tissue culture is not the topic here. It just shortens
turn-around times, i.e. the time until the species is readily available.
Thus, it is nothing more than a production technique.

The point I make is that people are not hunting for N.rajah (because it
is readily available) but others. The names change (very fast). Still
the problem has the same features as earlier. In contrast to the past
people now run to the rain forrest collecting new species (naming them
thus creating a market and propagating them in their own monetary
interest believing in the need to environmentally -> tissue cultured
satisfy the demand).
You know yourself that the genetic diversity is not preserved by tissue
culture. You also know the market value of newly introduced species.
What I accuse is the hypocracy to say "we are doing tissue culture
to save the rain forrest" instead of saying "yes they have a market
value and that is why I am propagating them for my own financial
benefit". If this is in a commercial scale the internet is the wrong
place to market it.
I am not talking about 'uncosts'. I am talking about plants little tiny
bastards (tissue cultured 2cm in height) offered for $50 and more. This
is not the hobbyist propagating them in his/her hood (during the time
when other's are going out with their girlfriends) for his/her fun but
an entrepreneur with the aim to make money.
>
> So, now tell me please, what you are doing, to save the species in the
> wild! You can e.g. buy the areas, where rare species are growing, to
> protect it from logging or try to organize it, but do it.
See above. You do not save the genetic diversity by tissue culture
of one (not even two male/female) plant.

So, tell me please, what do you do against the global warming, the war in
Chechnia, ...

> Have a e.g a look to Borneo! Do you know how long the species will
> survive in the wild? They are killed by logging and fire, not by
> plant-hunters and I would be happy, if I would have got seed from species
> like N. neglecta or N. campanulata from them to keep the genome alive, at
> least in the tube and in a lot of greenhouses. Now they are extinct and
> we can't bring them back again!
What does N.xxxx help us in the tube if the forrests are gone ? It is
hypocritical to say plant collectors do any good to the nature by ha-
ving the plants in their greenhouses. It is for their own fun.

>
> Sorry for this hard lines, but think about that.
Read my comments. We all have to make our living somehow.

>
> Joe N.
>
>
..Michael

-- 
  Michael Hasemann | Technical Research Centre of Finland - Automation
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