>Why is it illegal for someone to collect endangered species, yet the
>equivalent to a nuclear bomb can be dropped on acres of Sarracenia by a
>corporation and not an eyelash is batted! ? Where is the Nature
>Conservancy? where are federal and state government laws that protect
>these species? I don't get it! Are these corporations above the law?
The problem is that S. leucophylla is "only" a species protected by CITES
Appendix II. This means that collection permits are not neccessary to
collect plants and, worse, large corporations can do pretty much what they
want. Since S. leucophylla is not protected by the Endangered Species Act,
S. leucophylla is only considered 'another plant.' The only way for
Sarracenia to be protected by law is to place them on the Endangered or
Threatened list of the ESA. In this case it would be considered as
endangered as S. orophilla and trade would be stopped, so would the sale of
plants and seed in the US. The problem is that and an endangerd plant on
CITES is not necessarily condisered endangerd by law here in the US.
>I really don't feel that small collections made by responsible hobbiests
>is the problem. Mass collection for trade is bad, but by far, the worst
>threat to Sarracenia stands in the south is habitat destruction by
>developers and corporations.
I think most of us would agree. However, and unfortunately, we don't have
the political clout or financial resources to stop these large corporations.
Christoph