I almost hate to add to the volume of mail under this heading, but then I
thought I should!
First, I see real risk in publishing PRECISE plant locations. Anyone who has
been on plant hunting expeditions knows that the evidence of plant theft from
the wild is irrefutable.
Publicising locations aids the theives but doesn't impact conservation
in a beneficial way. To benefit conservation you need the
conservationists to know the locations and everyone else to understand
the need for conservation and value of specifically threatened plants.
Having dispensed with my opinion, I have a possible solution.
Clearly it is a good idea to centralise knowledge to some degree. The
question is where. Those who read my earlier mails when I first joined
might recall I own a collection afforded National collection status
under a UK inspired conservation programme. This programme recognises
nationally important collections of specific genera. Thus I own the
Pinguicula National Collection and some hundereds more exist including
at least one Sarracenia national collection. This scheme is now
expanding into Europe, the USA, Australia and possibly elsewhere (i can
find out). To me, it is a clear objective of each National Collection
to collate all valuable information about a genus and this would include
known and suspected locations for the plants. Each National Collection
holder is charged with being conservation minded and must demonstrate
this in their application to become recognised. Therefore they are a
good gamble as a safe repository of sensitive information (such as
locations).
Anyone could request location information from a collection holder.
But, for example, if I was asked for a very sensitive location I might
control my response. Thus, if asked where to find P. jackii, first I
might refuse some people unless they could gain a reference from those I
know and trust. Second, I might tell them the location in exchange for
details of when they expected to visit the site. I would then advise my
colleagues in the relevant country that this person would be visiting an
endangered site. This would guard against theft as any damage during
the time of the visit would be easy to investigate.
I don't want to be a policeman but in this day and age I feel all of us
have to be and my National Collection Holder status seems to oblige me
to be active in this way. If we had at least one National Collection
holder for each genus (where doesn't matter, any country can start to
participate), then this could form a distributed database of locations
and all other requireddata, collated by genus. Obviously it would help
if such collection holders were also on the Internet. It would also
help if we could begin to standardise how information was stored (I am
about to offer a solution to that too! but not today).
(By the way, it is acceptable for there to be duplicate National
Collections or two or more similar collections. Any such could be
duplicate holders of relevant data.)
One word of caution. In this day and age, collectios cost money and
data management adds to the proble, It is possible that anyone holding
such a database might choose to sell information, though probably at a
nominal charge. This tends to put off enquiries that would waste time,
and limit info to those who really do want it.)
If required, I can supply limited details of countries with equivalent
schemes to national collections, including the local administrating
bodies in some cases. In the UK the organisation acting as the
authority, administrators and overseers is the National Council for the
Conservation of Plants and gardens, located at The Pines, Wisley
Gardens, Wisley, england (the home of the Royal Horticultural society
gardens).
And if it isn't obvious by now, I for one would not log locations for
certain very endangered species on a publicly accessible database. I'm
not worried about thoughtful introduction of rare species by aware and
concerned individuals, especially where they endeavour to collect seed,
not plants. I am worried about an inconsiderate few who would have no
inhibitions in stripping a site for financial gain. I can name a few
nurseries that do it (or have done - e.g. a US based company is well
known for stripping VFTs from the wild) and I know or have heard of
individuals too.
Regards
Paul