Turnbull and Middleton it seems never returned the types of their Sulawesi
species, and nor did Kurata (the exception being dentata, whose Type IS at
BO) - that makes 5 missing types there alone. N.rhombicaulis (a bit over 20
years but..) and adnata are also unrepresented at BO. N.mapuluensis and
N.borneensis ARE there, but the majority of new Sumatran ones are not.
CITES and Nepenthes: I certainly appreciate the desire of people to rescue
these species from a doubtful history in their native forest, and I would
probably also support it, BUT it is still a small courtesy to send type
material of some description to Bogor - and as I said in my previous
posting, it is only the 'professionals' who would have visa problems,
because they need to associate themselves with Bogor and LIPI. The
'tourist' who collects a few seeds or plant specimens is not going to be
'blacklisted' by Bogor if they send them specimens. Just because rules or
laws or herbaria (BTW the World Bank is spending several million dollars on
upgrading Bogor, and encouraging taxonomy in Indonesia starting as from
February this year) aren't perfect doesn't mean that we should be allowed to
overlook them. Far more is to be gained by not alienating the Indonesian
scientific community. These scientists would love to have more outside
interest and association, it is not their fault that their government
suffers from post-colonial paranoia with regard to science. As scientists
from 'developed' countries we must not behave as though we are above such
rules. CITES is probably even more poorly regarded in countries such as
Indonesia, which would like to start export trades in much of their
wildlife, as well as plants. However we should not condemn, or dodge these
problems, they can best be solved by EMPOWERING the future advisors or
decision makers in those countries.
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Matthew Jebb,
School of Botany,
Trinity College Dublin, E-mail:mjebb@mail.tcd.ie
Dublin 2, Tel: +353-1-702 1421
IRELAND. Fax: +353-1-702 1147
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