Collecting Permit Ideas

[Mark Walker]

Well, I thought I was done...

Doug Yanega wrote:

>which would you choose?

With no other alternative, (b)'s the choice.  But wait...

>
>        I wasn't saying this is the choice that I or any of you would WANT
>to make, and I would also find NO joy in (b) at all, because I have no
>interest in buying specimens, and only a marginal interest in having a
>collection. Almost everything I collect is for research, and a safari tour
>is not for me. The point is that alternative (a) is presently in place in
>many regions, and no country is going to abandon that policy for one of (c)
>"go in and take whatever you want, as many as you want, wherever you want",
>which is what people here seem to prefer. But if you want something other
>than (a), you're going to have to suggest an alternative a lot closer to
>(b) than (c), I think, sad as that may be for the people who enjoy the act
>of collecting. Alternative (c) offers essentially NO benefits for the
>country adopting that policy, and (d) a cheap permit isn't much better.

Why does (c) have to be worded so negatively?  I personally am not asking
for the liberty to "go in and take whatever I want, as many as I want,
wherever I want", and I don't think that many people have that attitude.
Why can't (c) be something more like, "pay a standard permitting fee, file a
permit, use judgement, awareness, sensitivity, and ecological concern while
selecting what, if anything, you desire to remove from the wild".

You don't need a bureaucracy to implement such a permitting process.  The
whole point is not to police who's coming in and what's going out, but
rather to provide a process which (at a minimum):

1.  Generates records of who's coming in explicitly for this purpose.
2.  Distinguishes those who are attempting to act within the law from those
who are not.
3.  Discourages impulsive collecting.
4.  Provides a mechanism for elucidating rules, restrictions, hazards, etc.
5.  Provides some financial benefits.
6.  Encourages the generation and sharing of critical data beneficial to the
incredibly few people who are genuinely interested in the native Lep
ecology.

You wouldn't have to spend one extra centavo on enforcement, for the whole
premise here is that there are already officials to contend with.  If no
such officials exist now, then I'm not sure why we're having this
discussion.

As we all know, the "bad people" are not going to follow the rules anyhow -
especially if there is no enforcement.

>        I know this thread rubs a lot of us the wrong way, but looking for
>solutions to a mess like this is not easy or pleasant. What we would LIKE
>and what is reasonable for us to expect are never going to be the same. If
>we can't compromise at some level, then we have no right to complain about
>the status quo.

Well said.  On this we clearly agree.

Mark Walker.