Collecting Permit Ideas

[Doug Yanega]

Mark wrote:

>Well, I thought I was done...

Me too...;-)

>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.

Look at it from the point of view of the host country; (1) is it practical
to impose any sorts of restrictions on WHAT is collected? Not without
professional entomologists who examine all material collected to make the
IDs, and can separate things allowed from things not allowed. (2) Is it
practical to limit the NUMBER collected? Not without someone whose job is
counting the specimens when the collector leaves. (3) Is it practical to
restrict WHERE things are collected? Not without staff at all restricted
areas who are authorized to search people.
        Note that ALL this applies WITH a permitting process. It is not
practical to implement piecemeal restrictions, unless someone is willing to
shell out the money for the personnel and equipment involved. At least in
Brazil, there are no professional entomologists working for any government
agencies whose services could be co-opted for confirming IDs on a
spur-of-the-moment basis, likewise no staff free to be moved out to
national parks to police illegal collecting there, and you don't go through
customs when *leaving* the country, so you'd have to move someone out and
set up shop in the airport. That aspect alone - about customs searches only
being done at the time of arrival at one's destination, rather than when
one leaves - makes it almost impossible to enforce anything *except* for a
total ban on anything without a bill of sale (because there is *definitely*
no way that the customs officials at all of the countries one can fly to
*from* Brazil will have the time or personnel to check that the conditions
of one's Brazilian permit have all been met).

>You don't need a bureaucracy to implement such a permitting process.

How can you possibly do it without a bureaucracy?

> 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.

Who keeps the records? That involves bureaucracy.

>2.  Distinguishes those who are attempting to act within the law from those
>who are not.

Who defines the law? Ditto.

>4.  Provides a mechanism for elucidating rules, restrictions, hazards, etc.

Who defines these?? Ditto.

>5.  Provides some financial benefits.

Not enough to pay for itself, surely, and also requires a LOT of
bureaucracy to process the money.

>6.  Encourages the generation and sharing of critical data beneficial to the
>incredibly few people who are genuinely interested in the native Lep
>ecology.

If there are so incredibly few people (and there are), why would any
country go to this trouble? Further, critical data on native leps *can* be
generated and shared without a single specimen leaving the country. This
will not be considered a selling point.

>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.

They are not at all the same kinds of officials, doing the same sorts of
jobs. Your point-of-entry, point-of-departure permitting process with
inspections is *not* something that fits within the present framework.
Heck, it wouldn't be compatible within the US framework either, because
they *also* don't have customs checks when leaving! That is one of my main
points, and one reason *I'm* still discussing this - you need to see that
you ARE asking for something new, and that will entail costs up front.
You're going to need to either offer a way to offset those costs, or a damn
good incentive for a country to simply absorb them. TANSTAAFL. ("There
ain't no such thing as a free Lep")

Peace,

Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 031-449-2579, fax: 031-441-5481  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82