Hi Boyce, This is great - a constructive debate bringing many well-informed perspectives to bear on a complex, important and emotive subject. > You make some valid points and I appreciate you sharing your perspective > with me. At botanical and horticultural society meetings I have made and > responded to many of the concerns you have expressed. I'm glad you agree that the points I made are valid but I notice you only responded to some of them. Besides which, responding to a concern isn't the same thing as answering it, as one of your former presidents discovered when he was asked 'did you have sexual relations...?' I would be the last person to deny that the predictive models are inadequate. For my PhD I studied the population dynamics of Macaranga in undisturbed rainforest in Brunei and am familiar with the difficulties. In fact, I'd go further than you and say that the models are worse than useless. Like the financial models that bankers used to predict the behaviour of the economy prior to the credit crunch (I was a banker for 14 years too and in the thick of this disaster - it wasn't my fault, honest), they encourage a false sense of security that the rest of us call hubris. The question is not whether your scientists can accurately predict the likely invasiveness of species (they can't - beyond the short term and a few common sense principles) but what to do, given that inability. Your answer is to do nothing on the grounds that it's 'conservative'. Nero would have approved. My answer is to harness the enthusiasm and knowledge of nurserymen and private collectors who could (more th an) plug the real declines in your budget that are coming whether you like it or not. As it happens, we are going to do our thing whether you ask for our help or not. In fact we will continue to promote ex situ conservation even if you ask us not to, unless you give a better reason to stop than 'my scientist is bigger than your scientist'. In short, we'll get on with conserving the plants we love, with or without your permission but surely we could work faster towards our common goal together than in opposition? > The role of botanic gardens and arboreta as biological arks > can not be overstated. *Ex situ* collections are the 'last best hope' when > all else fails. We agree on this point completely. One of the most exciting botanic gardens I've ever visited is Juniper Level at Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina and one of the finest arboreta in the world is at the nearby J.C. Raulston Arboretum. The latter has recently started issuing an Index Seminum. Hooray! You ducked my question about why it makes sense to be conservative with respect to Index Semina but not to existing collections or new ones. I'm thrilled that you evaluate new collections for several years before you release them for viewing by the great unwashed. Many - but, let's be honest, not all - nurserymen exercise the same caution voluntarily. You don't need a supercomputer and a bunch of scientists to predict that fleshy-fruited bird dispersed climbers from southern China are a bad risk in Tennessee. You don't mention the other role for botanic gardens - that of enthusing, inspiring and kindling the sense of awe that plants can light in persons who otherwise would never encounter nature outside the Discovery Channel. I live on a small, crowded island and have two of the world's great arboreta - Kew and Westonbirt - within a two hour drive but how many people in the vastness of the USA can say the same? Nurseries and private botanic gardens have a huge role to play in giving people a stake in wanting to conserve wild flora. The reason members of this forum are so passionate about plant conservation is that we grow plants and we want to grow more. > CBG's approach to the CBD has been developed over many years based upon > experiences overseas and is a reflection of the current state of affairs - > if we want to collect in these countries we have to obey their laws. Their > laws, in most cases, are based on one or more interpretations of the CBD. > So the voluntary aspect (USA hasn't signed) is not really voluntary once we > start to work beyond the USA. I don't doubt the realpolitik motivations - and it's good to hear you acknowledging that the real reason you adopted the CBD is that you were forced to, not that you agree with it. But that's exactly my point. Conservation needs people like you - in positions of influence - to stand up and say that the CBD is a 'cretinous and counterproductive exercise in bureaucratic mumbo jumbo' as I've put it elsewhere. > I believe there are meetings where scientists > and governments discuss changes/improvements to the CBD so there is hope > that some of the less effective aspects will be modified. You may believe this but unfortunately you'd be mistaken to do so. On the contrary, governments and scientists are working hard to close all the loopholes. The Nagoya Protocol, open for signature since 2 February this year, reaffirms the CBD and seeks to bolster the legal basis for placing as many obstacles as possible in the way of free access to wild genetic resources. As the CBD website informs us: 'The Nagoya Protocol will create greater legal certainty and transparency for both providers and users of genetic resources by: Establishing more predictable conditions for access to genetic resources. Helping to ensure benefit-sharing when genetic resources leave the contracting party providing the genetic resources By helping to ensure benefit-sharing, the Nagoya Protocol creates incentives to conserve and sustainably use genetic resources, and therefore enhances the contribution of biodiversity to development and human well-being.' That's one instance of the ostrich fallacy, two false predicates and four non-sequiturs in one short paragraph, surely some kind of philosophical record. This garbage is now eight signatures away from ratification and entry into international law. God help us. He won't but if you don't ask... The only way the CBD can be overturned is by treating it with the contempt it deserves. You have the blessing of your government to do precisely this, something that my own spineless leaders haven't left me the luxury of. In international law, the CBD cannot be imposed unilaterally by a signatory on a non-signatory. Another government cannot require a US institution to respect the CBD (though it could deny you access to its plants). > After reading through the posts, I think we all realize none of us > really have all of the answers yet, but with so many enthusiastic, dedicated > and intelligent people working towards the same goal there is hope. Amen to that. As so many others have said on this thread, WE ARE NOT THE ENEMY. I'm powerfully reminded of the long-running debate in animal conservation between hunters and (other) conservationists. Hunters argue that no-one has a larger stake in conserving stocks of 'game' animals than they do. Vegetarians argue that it's better to allow the hunting preserves to be sold for development than allow those beastly hunters to shoot bambi (OK, OK, they don't argue that, but it comes to the same thing). In plant conservation, we can have our cake and eat it. I don't know a single person who goes out hunting plants or seeds in order to shoot them them or stick their horns on the wall. Diane Whitehead gives the excellent example of Wollemia nobilis. I have one in my garden, a gift to my young daughter from her Godfather (a conservation biologist). The future of this species is more assured than any other formerly endangered plant I can think of. Let me go out on a limb and predict t hat it won't be invading a forest near you soon. You'd better run that by your experts though. The little word 'soon' is a revealing one. Several people have commented on the irrelevance on evolutionary timescales of our feeble human battles. I just walked with my kids to the end of the country lane we live on. The landscape hereabouts is completely manufactured, over two millennia, by humans but is still beautiful. I collected a big handful of seeds from Ornithogalum pyrenaicum, known locally as Bath Asparagus. This species may be native - it is so often impossible to tell - or it may have been introduced by the Romans a couple of thousand years ago. Either way it's a welcome component of the local flora. Go back another 18,000 years (less than an eye blink in geological time), to the last glacial maximum, and there wasn't a vascular plant within hundreds of miles of where I'm writing this because my lane was under a mile of ice. Go back to the start of the Quaternary, 2.5 million years ago and Britain was covered by forest, interestingly completely different in compo sition to ecologically similar contemporary forests. The palynologist Keith Bennett has spent his career demonstrating with fossil (pollen) evidence that plant species advance and retreat in response to natural climate cycles in an unpredictable fashion and that everything we see now is laughably ephemeral. As he writes: 'I have pointed out that fossil data appears to show major increases and distribution changes for some taxa (such as temperate trees) at the beginning of the current interglacial but that these changes are unlikely to survive. Long-term survival of taxa is likely to depend on persistence throughout in southern localities. The new populations in higher latitudes will become extinct.' By 'new' he means those that have advanced during the current interglacial. Bennett didn't coin the term 'Anthropocene' for the current geological era but he'd probably agree that it's just a phase we're going through. So there! My scientist is bigger than your scientist (at least I'll bet he has a longer beard - see his website http://qub.ac.uk/schools/gap/…). Best wishes, Tom > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2011 14:48:39 -0500 > From: Boyce Tankersley <btankers@gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [pbs] Convention on Biological Diversity > To: Pacific Bulb Society <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org> > Message-ID: > <CADnnTuA2QB1+FVcuUGgQEXPiqAQR4abjx+Kq9ke1TM=CqzCGBQ@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Hi Tom: > > You make some valid points and I appreciate you sharing your perspective > with me. At botanical and horticultural society meetings I have made and > responded to many of the concerns you have expressed. > > With respect to *Index semina*, in CBG's case, we are pursuing a > conservative approach recommended by our scientific staff with expertise in > these areas (seed biology and invasive species). The challenge that we (and > others) have not overcome yet is identifying the complex characteristics > that lead to invasions - before they happen (we are pretty good - after the > fact). The predictive models are simply not that accurate (and we have only > focused on our regional climatic conditions). I shudder to think of trying > to develop a model that could evaluate invasiveness with a high degree of > accuracy for all climatic conditions. > > At the same time, staff with responsibility for building and maintaining > genetic diversity within our collections continue to collect plants. The > plants we bring back are evaluated for a number of years before they make it > into the general collections in an effort to avoid bringing invasive plants > into the USA. The role of botanic gardens and arboreta as biological arks > can not be overstated. *Ex situ* collections are the 'last best hope' when > all else fails. > > CBG's approach to the CBD has been developed over many years based upon > experiences overseas and is a reflection of the current state of affairs - > if we want to collect in these countries we have to obey their laws. Their > laws, in most cases, are based on one or more interpretations of the CBD. > So the voluntary aspect (USA hasn't signed) is not really voluntary once we > start to work beyond the USA. I believe there are meetings where scientists > and governments discuss changes/improvements to the CBD so there is hope > that some of the less effective aspects will be modified. > > Each botanic garden or arboretum, within the confines of national and > international law, is free to adopt the approach(s) that best fits what they > think is important. Perspectives within the botanic garden community differ > widely as you can imagine with 450 institutions in the USA and 2,300 > Worldwide. > > It has been heartening to read the comments related to the importance so > many on the Pacific Bulb Society listserve place on conservation of rare and > endangered bulbs and the efforts taken at your own expense to do whatever > you can. After reading through the posts, I think we all realize none of us > really have all of the answers yet, but with so many enthusiastic, dedicated > and intelligent people working towards the same goal there is hope. > > Many thanks, > > Boyce Tankersley > Director of Living Plant Documentation > Chicago Botanic Garden > 1000 Lake Cook Road > Glencoe, IL 60022