Collecting Permit Ideas

[Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX]

hey, well said and i agree. sadly the bughuggers and bug gestapo are not
always prone to clear thinking or reasoning as evidenced by the events of
the past few years. some might make the observation that the people with
real influence and legal power are more interested in mindless rule
enforcement and imposing their moral values on others than they are in
attending to the substantive issues which threaten our global biodiversity

> ----------
> From: 	Mark Walker[SMTP:mwalker at aisvt.bfg.com]
> Reply To: 	mwalker at aisvt.bfg.com
> Sent: 	Monday, August 17, 1998 11:34 AM
> To: 	LEPS-L at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: 	Re: Collecting Permit Ideas
> 
> 
> 
> 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.
>