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Post by Dennis Z on Jul 10, 2015 0:42:51 GMT -5
N. aristolochioides is crtically endangered! The two...proabbly one site it still exists is located within Kerinci Seblat National Park, and collection is totally illegal! Yup, it's a good thing Ricardo does not completely decimate all the seed pods, he harvests them sustainably, or so I've been told. I totally agree people should not be harvesting seed illegally! But unfortunately there is little we can do about it and boycotting rarely ever works. Nepenthes in the wild has a very low germination rate and possibly some species such as N.clipeata might go extinct soon (though I think a decent population of them has been found) so cultivation may be the key to survival of some species unfortunately. The only way to get genetic diversity is to seed grow plants as well. Also, collecting does play a role in the decline of nepenthes species, however habitat loss and pollution accounts for the decline in many species. Borneo in particular suffers from habitat destruction and that is seriously affecting wild fauna and animals in a scale larger than collectors would ever achieve. I do not support illegal collecting at all, but if you think about it, I'd rather germinate the species, share it with the community and create lower demand for the species which would then decrease demand and poaching of the seeds.
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Post by Dennis Z on Jul 10, 2015 0:47:09 GMT -5
I do echo what roraima says, don't buy aristolochioides seed. Buying seed and wild collected plants very very rarely contributes to the decline of a species but aristolochioides is critically endangered and anyone that buys seed is indeed directly contributing to the extinction of this species. If people would stop buying the seed they would stop collecting it and we wouldn't have a problem. Unfortunately, boycotting rarely ever works because there is always a person wanting seeds. "Buying seed and wild collected plants very very rarely contributes to the decline of a species" YES finally somebody who shares the same point on collecting. Habitat loss and pollution are main factors. Though we are contributing to the extinction of the species in the wild we are increasing the fitness (biology term for an individual's ability to mature and contribute to the gene pool) of the plant on earth.
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Post by bonfield on Jul 10, 2015 0:51:59 GMT -5
I agree with every point on conservation that has been made, and believe that only those who are going to get permission and have the intent of introducing TC plants into the hobby should be allowed to harvest. It's just that once the seeds have already been removed from their habitat, the list of outcomes for them is pretty much limited to being returned to the harvest site(probably not going to happen), being left to expire, destruction, or being sold, so I may as well put the already harvested pods to use. Plus, no matter how many people refuse to buy, there will be much more who will, so boycotting is fairly ineffective. I still think that Ricardo should stop harvesting that species, but until he does, I'm probably going to keep buying.
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Post by roraima on Jul 10, 2015 0:56:18 GMT -5
Dennis with all do respect Ricardo certainly doesn't harvest all the seeds himself in a "sustainable" manner...to think so is being naive. He utilizes lots of satellite local collectors they are all motivated by money.There's not many wild collected aristolochioides plants I see being distributed to the community? Especially as Ricardo's been poaching them for a long time....
Bottom line for this species if there was no greed for wild collected plants and seeds this species would persist.
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Post by roraima on Jul 10, 2015 0:58:16 GMT -5
Easy to find a thousand justifications to support the destruction of habitat we've never been to...
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Post by Dennis Z on Jul 10, 2015 1:00:24 GMT -5
Yup, I share the same view as Cole. The thing is, we can not control what Ricardo does or what other people may decide to do. Though buying the seeds contributes to the driving factor for more poaching, there are enough people willing to pay for the seeds that is enough for Ricardo to climb another mountain and collect more seeds.
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Post by roraima on Jul 10, 2015 1:05:40 GMT -5
Total apathy...good luck.
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Post by bonfield on Jul 10, 2015 1:06:01 GMT -5
@ Roraima: Are you going to eliminate every activity from your life that has a purportedly negative impact elsewhere? Because if you did, you'd probably find your new life intolerable if not completely unmanageable. No cars, no groceries that weren't grown sustainably, probably most of the items in your home would be gone. But you're not going to do that, I'm assuming for "a thousand justifications".
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Post by H2O on Jul 10, 2015 1:10:17 GMT -5
I've this discussion with many different people from many different views.
Many of the points you've made a classic examples of excuses hobby horticulturalist make to justify what they want. The argument that culturing plants will be the plants best best and spreading around plants to the local market will stop people from buying seed is a common one. How many plants do you seed available? I know of at least 10 occasions members of the forum have bought aristolochioides seed, do you see any extra plants?
I will have to respectively disagree that boycotting won't work, with a population this small every pod is important and the CP market really isn't that large, if people would start viewing it that way and sharing their opinion to others it would become less acceptable.
This goes to say I really think this only goes for a small group of species that are being collected. It's the comparison of collecting rotundifola vs purp heterophylla in Canada. D. rotundifolia is a weed in wetlands and a couple seeds to grow isn't going to hurt the population, start collecting purp heterophylla and it's a whole different story. There's a reason there isn't anymore AF jonesii in the wild anymore.
I always want to add that this is just a friendly discussion and I hope I don't come off as being to harsh.
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Post by Dennis Z on Jul 10, 2015 1:11:04 GMT -5
Dennis with all do respect Ricardo certainly doesn't harvest all the seeds himself in a "sustainable" manner...to think so is being naive. He utilizes lots of satellite local collectors they are all motivated by money.There's not many wild collected aristolochioides plants I see being distributed to the community? Especially as Ricardo's been poaching them for a long time.... Bottom line for this species if there was no greed for wild collected plants and seeds this species would persist. I certainly did not 100 percent believe he harvested sustainably. I was just told by some others and I thought it would be worth mentioning to potentially shed some more light on the situation. Maybe some people are just hoarding the species for a profit... I haven't been in this hobby long enough to make that judgement, I just gave the best case scenario if everybody was as sharing like the people on this forum. This species will continue to exist even if it is extinct in the wild. If we had a petition that Ricardo would agree to for the stopping of poaching N.aristolochoides, I would be the first to sign my name but that would probably never happen. Some species of animals or plants can exist solely in the captive care of humans. Example being: Ambystoma mexicanum
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Post by roraima on Jul 10, 2015 1:11:47 GMT -5
I strive to achieve sustainability in as many aspects in life are as possible/I have control over Cole... and I don't use it as an excuse not to care about ecology habitat and critically endangered species. Your argument is classic apathy "if it's not me it's them".
YOU HAVE A CHOICE NOT TO BUY CRITICALLY ENDANGERED NEPENTHES SEEDS!!!!
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Post by bonfield on Jul 10, 2015 1:15:19 GMT -5
I would support a petition to stop Ricardo from harvesting endangered species if that's what it came to, my question is that until he stops, what is to happen to the pods that were collected?
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Post by H2O on Jul 10, 2015 1:23:15 GMT -5
The thing is, we can not control what Ricardo does.. Unfortunately that is totally wrong, you can directly effect the situation by not buying aristolochioides seeds. Try to take a step back and look at the whole picture. In 10 years will you still have aristolochioides from that seed? Will you even have Nepenthes anymore? Keep in mind that if these plants are grown well Nepenthes take up loads of space when they mature, they don't stay those cute 6 inch plants that fit inside terrariums. Unfortunately it's almost always begginers that are buying these rare seeds and most people don't last in this hobby, I've only been in this hobby for a short amount of time and seen so many people come and go, build their terrariums, grow for a while and then disappear or sell everything off. I know I did the same thing before realizing I would need a greenhouse one day. So at the end of the day or a couple years down the road is it really worth it to put even more pressure on such an awesome plant just to have that species?
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Post by Dennis Z on Jul 10, 2015 1:25:37 GMT -5
I've this discussion with many different people from many different views. Many of the points you've made a classic examples of excuses hobby horticulturalist make to justify what they want. The argument that culturing plants will be the plants best best and spreading around plants to the local market will stop people from buying seed is a common one. How many plants do you seed available? I know of at least 10 occasions members of the forum have bought aristolochioides seed, do you see any extra plants? I will have to respectively disagree that boycotting won't work, with a population this small every pod is important and the CP market really isn't that large, if people would start viewing it that way and sharing their opinion to others it would become less acceptable. This goes to say I really think this only goes for a small group of species that are being collected. It's the comparison of collecting rotundifola vs purp heterophylla in Canada. D. rotundifolia is a weed in wetlands and a couple seeds to grow isn't going to hurt the population, start collecting purp heterophylla and it's a whole different story. There's a reason there isn't anymore AF jonesii in the wild anymore. I always want to add that this is just a friendly discussion and I hope I don't come off as being to harsh. The CP market is large enough that there are enough views by different people that boycotting will not be effective. Can you name any instances where boycotting has worked? In all honesty, many factors could have contributed to why people were not offering the plants publicly later on. Potentially private selling/trading occurred or simply the seeds did not make it. Really, there is not much validity to boycott because either ways the harvested seed will be tossed out of nobody buys them. For sure enough people are going to buy them for it to continue, but would you rather have a thrown out seed pod or a grower growing the species? AF S.jonesii is a mutation that results in lack of anthocyanin in the plant no? That would mean the mutation is potentially lost (unless it is recessive) but the species itself continues to survive. On a side note, nobody is coming out harsh, it is so far a nice debate. I like to hear the viewpoints of others because I learn and increase my breadth of judgement haha.
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Post by H2O on Jul 10, 2015 1:26:45 GMT -5
We all seem to be typing out good long replies at the same time, might wait this one out till morning.
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