Re: IN VITRO stuff

Andreas Wistuba (a.wistuba@carnivor.rhein-neckar.de)
10 Jan 1995 00:47:00 +0200

> > Dear Michael,
> > Nobody believes that "in vitro culture saves
> > the rain forest".
> we are making progress! :-)

Who thinks/thought that in vitro culture saves the rain forest?

> > species out there in the jungle (i.e. the
> > small areas left), but I disagree if you
> > claim these will be discovered and named
> > because somebody wants to create a new market
> > with tissue cultered plants.

> No, but it is welcomed opportunity to be able
> to sell them overpriced

> in high numbers in a

Where are these high numbers of plant buyers?

> short time. That was my argument and in this
> there is no difference to "Victorian plant
> hunters" albeit with re- spect to the damage
> caused to the environment.

Who damages the environment? Through our travels Joachim, Heiko and myself
never noticed that an ecosystem was dying because a fanatic Orchid or CP-
lover had collected a few cpsules of seeds or in the more scientific case
a few cuttings as herbarium specimens (type material). A non-commercial
collection of seeds (and I regard the collection of some seeds as a start
for in-vitro-propagation as non-commercial) can hardly do any damage to a
population.

> > There is a scientific interest in these with
> > or without the possibility of TC.
>
> Undoubtedly!

Well, Michael,
I fear that "we re making progress";-)

> > In my opinion it is better having these new
> > species in vitro and making them available to
> > the public than never knowing that these
> > species exist at all or being already
> > destroyed.
>
> Sure, as more or less 'artificial' artifacts
> disembodied from their environment with no
> realistic hope ever to be reestablished. So,
> what is the value, anyway ? What is a species
> without its ecosystem.

A "cultivated" population can not replace the wild population but isn t
human an "artificial artifact disembodied from their environment with no
realistic hope ever to be reestablished" as well?

All the best

Andreas

Andreas Wistuba
Mudauer Ring 227; 68259 Mannheim; Germany
Tel.: +49 621 705471 Fax: +49 621 711307
e-mail: a.wistuba@carnivor.rhein-neckar.de
a.wistuba@dkfz-heidelberg.de
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