In case of the species of orchids used commercially in Turkey, they are used
widely in food items. this makes i think, as you can see when you surf in
the net, Turkey is among the richest (taxa and abundance) of orchids as well
as being among the countries that orchids are in danger for two reasons -all
the same- collecting, and more notably habitat destrcuction. Plants cannot
travel using, say currrents, and if you destroy their 'homes' this means
their death.

In molluscs case, it is also can be seen in spring hydrobiids vanishing at
the end of a drought!

regards,

ÜMIT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Rindsberg" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 6:50 PM
Subject: Re: Endangered list from IUCN


> Andrwe Grebneff wrote,
>
> > Problem with red Book & CITES is that many
> unendangered spp are listed... including the
> entire family Orchidaceae, as an example (yes,
> all 30-odd-thousand species). It's a typically
> bureaucratic thing... and it not only doesn't
> stopvandals & illegal commercial collecting, it
> can actually PREVENT conservation/preservation by
> not allowing specimens to be collected for
> transfer to another habitat in the face of
> logging etc. Ban CITES!!
>
> Yes -- the book I recommended earlier, 'Orchid Fever', describes an orchid
> species that is common enough in Turkey to base a small ice cream industry
> on.
>
> My impression is that many environmental laws were written partly to shut
> environmentalists up. If an ostensibly environmentalist act prevents
> environmentalists from interfering further with development of an area,
that
> solves two problems at once from the lawyers' point of view. And one has
to
> allow for differences of opinion among legislators; by the time a bill is
> passed into law, it may be very different than what was originally
proposed.
>
> Elbowing for dominance also occurs in baseline inventories of plants and
> animals. To biologists, it seems obvious that development of a pristine
area
> should be preceded by a complete and accurate inventory of the organisms
> living there. But because such inventories have often turned out to be
long
> and costly, and may prevent or hobble development, they are now generally
> underfunded, so at best they must be done in a rushed manner and are often
> heavily dependent on previous literature. For instance, a hill known for
its
> lepidopteran fauna may be inventoried in a two-week period, scheduled
during
> the butterflies' off-season. Previous literature is usually grossly
> inadequate for any given area, though there are bright exceptions. For a
> developer, preventing activists from learning what species may be lost is
> far more efficient than battling them in court afterward. So taxonomy
> continues its slow decline despite the best efforts of Kurt Auffenberg,
Doug
> Shelton, Marlo Krisberg and other hard-working everyday heroes to find out
> what lives where.
>
> Andrew K. Rindsberg
>
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