I fully agree with Marcus. Collectors should do the impossible to
defend our occupations and to demonstrate the sense of what we are
principally doing: discovering wildlife, preserving it and documenting
it. The latest oil-disaster should be a lesson that our occupation is
ultra important for future generations.

There are a multitude of positive points in our hobby, and very minor
negative points. The more, we are not many and harm done to nature by
collectors, if existing, is to neglect. Our homepage has only 6000
registered members. With the reluctance of many people to register on
home pages, especially Europeans, this still gives only 20 000 regular
visitors and I frankly think that most of the truly interested ones
are members of our homepage.

On a world scale this is close to nothing. However, many of the
mollusk-interested people belong to an intellectual elite - this small
elite documented the major part of mollusks known today and the task
is far from finished.

I have my hands full with the Philippines - here is also a proposal of
law with the purpose to "protect everything" - but as things go now,
it is not evident that this law will be implemented. The proposals of
this law, if implemented, will make both research for scientists,
students and collectors virtually impossible. A true halt to science
in a country where only a fraction of the wildlife is known. The sad
thing is that much of this kind of laws comes through conservation
NGO's: often biologists without a job or well intended but completely
uninformed people.  Landes explains something as the following : one
can fool business people a short time, politicians a long time and
voters forever. The second case is the right one here, followed by the
voters who are kept completely misinformed.

The solution is big action on the social, political and information
levels. Only the ones among us that have powerful relations in these
fields can make a halt on what's happening.  One of the problems is
that the ecological "fashion" gives good points to over-protectionist
politicians,  biologists and journalists all at the same time. And bad
points to the one pointing to realities.

One out of several main reasons why our society is what it is today is
the gigantic freedom that Brittany offered it's citizens in the 18th
century. What happened there in an aura of freedom and support of
science on all levels resulted in much of what's good in what we know
today as civilisation.  Any restriction on free actions from minority
groups such as collectors or the few remaining scientists working in
the field  is a direct setback to the middle ages without any
fundamental reason.

So, the ones in a situation to act, please act,  you have my full
support.

Guido Poppe (it's late on Mactan Island now, no wind and a flat sea,
all out there is living it's life by the multiples of trillions of
individuals in unpolluted waters).

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