I.

Identification

1. The Issue

Orchids are beautiful, fascinating flowers. There are over 25,000 different types of orchids, and many are them are threatened, endangered or extinct, usually due to habitat destruction or poaching. Orchid smuggling is contributing to the loss of many species of orchid in the wild. The smuggling of endangered and threatened wild orchids provides for an interesting debate in the conservation world: if a species is in demand on the market, is it most likely to be preserved if the market is allowed some access to it or if the market is allowed no access to it at all?

2. Description

Orchids are beautiful, fascinating flowers that have long held a grip on the human imagination, perhaps due to their sexual appearance. The bloom of an orchid plant is so gorgeous and distinctive that one botanist was led to describe orchids as "living jewels" (Doyle, 9 Jan. 1995). These perennial plants have adapted to almost every environment on earth, and this has led to

a great diversity in orchids. There are between 25,000 to 30,000 different kinds of orchid throughout the world, and undoubtedly there are many more types that have yet to be discovered. Additionally, there are also approximately 60,000 known types of orchid hybrids, unknown in the wild, that have been created by orchid growers. Orchids are the largest flowering plant family on earth.

The size of an orchid plant can range from microscopic to several

feet tall. The bloom of an orchid can range from very tiny to

larger than a human hand. The flower petals are arranged in an

elaborate composition, and the blooms come in a great variety of

colors. Orchids can grow in just about any climate and in just

about any type of physical geography, such as tree branches, rocks,

or the ground. However, the majority of orchids grow in warm

climates. In the United States, orchids are most likely to be found

in Hawaii and Florida. Most internationally traded orchids come

from the tropical nations of Asia or South America, such as India,

Thailand, China, Singapore, Madagascar, Brazil, and Guatemala.

Orchids also vary dramatically in the amount of time needed to

bloom. Some orchids take up to 10 years to bloom, while hybrids

from the Dendrobium genus usually bloom within one year.

European aristocrats began collecting orchids in the 1800s, when

they learned to grow them in terrariums. Soon, European

aristocrats, especially the British, were going on safaris to South

America and Asia to acquire new types of the plant. Of course,

there were no laws or regulations concerning orchids. The

collection mentality inspired by orchids sometimes referred to as

"orchidelirium" could be seen early on. Some of these Europeans

"were known to find a new orchid in a valley, pick every one in

sight, and then burn the land so as to corner the market in the

species" (Doyle, p. 6).

It was not until the environmental movement of the 1960s

that regulations were enacted to protect wild orchids and their

habitats. Third World nations realized that their environmental

heritage was being stolen from them by rich Westerners. Today,

orchids are protected by national laws and international treaties.

Primary protection comes from the 1973 Convention on International

Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) treaty,

signed by over 120 nations. This treaty stipulates that any species

of plant or animal that is endangered cannot be commercially traded

(see

THAIBIRD case). Rare species that

are not yet endangered may be removed from the wild and

commercially traded, but those who do so must adhere to strict

regulations designed to ensure that no more orchid species become

endangered or extinct. In the United States, additional protection

comes from the Endangered Species Act, which forbids all commercial

trade in certain varieties of orchids which are endangered.

It is perfectly legal to trade in nursery-produced orchids. Orchid

growers use seeds or tips of leaves to grow orchid hybrids in their

nurseries. Creating the plants in nurseries is known as artificial

propagation, and this of course requires modern technology that was

not available to the first orchid growers. Modern greenhouses are

capable of imitating the temperature, moisture, and wind conditions

that orchids thrive upon in the wild. Nursery owners often outdo

nature by producing plants superior to those found in the wild

healthier and with flowers that are larger and have more

interesting colors.

For two reasons, orchid smuggling continues unabated. First of all,

nursery-raised orchids are expensive. This is because it is time-

consuming to raise orchids and the technology is not cheap. It is

often cheaper, easier, and quicker to obtain orchids illegally from

the wild. Because it is so much easier to collect orchids in the

wild, smugglers often can undercut the prices of legitimate

growers. Secondly, orchid collectors often find nursery-grown

orchids to lack the exotic aura and mystery of wild orchids.

Because collectors and growers prize unique orchids so much,

smuggling of protected orchids from the wild has increased. This

threatens many species of orchid, namely the exotic ones, although

no one knows exactly how many species of orchids are threatened by

smuggling or how quickly these species are becoming endangered. The

Lady's Slipper is the most commonly smuggled genus of orchid. Some

collectors will travel to tropical countries on their own in search

of rare and unique specimens to steal. Others utilize the services

of professional orchid smugglers. Most wild orchids sell for about

$25 per plant, but rarer species have been know to go for as much

as $2,000. It is easy to "launder" most of the flowers so that they

may be openly displayed, shown in competitions, bred, or traded.

Orchid smuggling is one part of the epidemic of plant and wildlife

smuggling, with an illegal commercial trade totaling $5 billion in

1994 (Schevitz, p. C2). Besides orchids, other plants that are

illegally traded include threatened or endangered cacti and

carnivorous plants. (see PLANT case). In

the past, authorities in the West have usually turned a blind eye

to plant smuggling because they had more serious issues to deal

with. However, this is changing, since plant smuggling is becoming

more lucrative and occurring on a larger scale.

The techniques of orchid smugglers are similar to those who smuggle

other rare plants or animal parts. The orchids can be hidden in

suitcases and car trunks or in secret compartments of shipping

boxes. Often smugglers will simply misdeclare a species on the

import and export permits, which is easy to do because

identifying endangered species is difficult for non-experts, and it

is difficult to spot a rare species when it is not in bloom. Also,

bribes have been know to make the process easier. Belize and

Taiwan, which are not signatories to CITES, are big markets for

smuggled orchids.

For the first time ever, the United States has charged an orchid

smuggler with a felony and prosecuted him. An Indonesian man named

Harto Kolopaking was charged with bringing approximately 1,500

tropical Lady's Slipper orchids from Indonesia into the US at San

Jose over a two-year period, in violation of the Endangered Species

Act. He pled guilty in November 1994, and on April 14, 1995,

Kolopaking was sentenced by a federal judge to five months in

prison.

Kolopaking's father once discovered a new species of

orchid, Paphiopedilum kolopakingii, which was named after him.

Kolopaking had been using a family member in San Jose to link his

rare orchids from the family nursery in Java with an orchid

wholesaler in the California. The first evidence against him

obtained by the U.S. was in 1993 when he tried to send 60 boxes of

rare orchids into the U.S. The US government later put together a

sting operation to lure Kolopaking from Java to the US. In

September 1994, Kolopaking was arrested in California after he sold

216 smuggled orchids worth $150,000 to an undercover federal agent

posing as an orchid collector.

There have been important arrests in Great Britain and Brazil as

well. In February 1994 there were some arrests that took orchid

growers by surprise. It occurred at the annual Japan Grand Prix

International in Tokyo, the biggest event in the orchid community,

attended by over 400,000 orchid lovers who display and show their

orchids. At the show, someone was arrested for selling a rare type

of orchid that was once believed to be extinct. This was a type of

lady slipper from northern Vietnam which was first discovered in

the early 1900s. At least two specimens of the plant were legally

shipped out of the country at that time. One of these plants was

used to produces thousands more, keeping the species alive when it

was believed to have gone extinct in the wild. But in the past few

years, it was discovered that the species was still growing wild in

some areas. Although it would have been legal to remove a few

specimens to provide some genetic variation to the nursery-grown

species, smugglers instead moved in to make off with nearly every

orchid. Some of the smuggled flowers ended up at the Tokyo show,

where authorities became aware of them. The seller was arrested and

two important Japanese orchid officials were forced to resign from

their jobs.

Another case of orchid smuggling involves a Hong Kong man named Tuc

Truong, who was charged with two felony and three misdemeanor

charges by the US federal government after he attempted to smuggle

chemicals, drugs, and endangered plants into the US from Hong Kong.

Among the smuggled articles was 280 pounds a species of orchid

protected under CITES and the Endangered Species Act (see FLOWER case). The orchid smuggling accounted

for one of the misdemeanor charges Truong faces, and it is a

regulatory misdemeanor, which means that the government does not

have to prove that the defendant was aware of the regulations

surrounding the items being brought into the country, but only that

the defendant knew what he was importing.

Although smugglers serve only a small number of orchid collectors,

they do great environmental damage. For example, as China has

opened itself up more to Westerners, it has become popular with

smugglers, since it contains many species never before seen in the

West. The Chinese environment is being ravaged by smugglers, aided

by the desperately poor peasantry, who assist the smugglers in

their work for a meager amount of money.

The big debate is whether smuggling hastens the extinction of wild

orchids or whether it helps to preserve them. The head of the

Commercial Orchids Guild, Jerry Fisher, acknowledges that he knows

there is a lot of orchid smuggling going on, but he defends orchid

collectors with most of the time being very concerned about the

preservation of the various species, and he credits them with

increasing knowledge about the plants. Most orchid collectors

believe that the biggest threat to orchids is loss of habitat,

specifically rain forests. Most orchids live in rain forests, and

as we are all aware, millions of acres of rain forest are cut or

burned down every year for mining, timber, farming and development.

Today, many orchids that are extinct in the wild due to habitat

destruction continue to grow in greenhouses. However, often when

collectors believe that an orchid's habitat is on the verge of

being completely destroyed, they will rush out to harvest the last

orchids from the area, leaving nothing behind, guaranteeing that

that particular species goes extinct in the wild.

Most orchid growers are surprisingly tolerant of such orchid

poaching and reserve most of their wrath for trade

restrictions. In their mind, it is trade restrictions which

endanger orchids and smugglers who preserve the various species for

humanity to enjoy forever. Since natural habitats are being

destroyed so rapidly anyway, they believe that it is better for a

smuggler to go into the jungle and remove every single plant he can

get his hands on. Orchid growers want to collect more endangered

species from the wild to preserve them. Environmentalists, of

course, choose to focus on preserving entire ecosystems rather than

a single species. They claim that collectors are motivated by greed

more than anything because there are many otherwise pristine

jungles that have had every orchid removed from them, making many

species of orchid extinct in the wild. There is a big difference

between removing a few specimens from the wild to ensure that a

species never goes extinct and removing every last orchid from an

ecosystem that may yet be saved. It is impossible to tell who is

right because no one can really predict what the future holds for

various ecosystems.

Orchid collectors usually believe that CITES goes too far and is

too strict in its plant regulations. They have two main problems

with CITES. First of all, CITES highly regulates the gathering of

orchids from the wild, but according to orchid growers, these

regulations actually contribute more to the extinction of wild rare

orchids than to their preservation, because under CITES it is

either illegal or extremely difficult to remove endangered or rare

orchid species from habitats that are being destroyed anyway. CITES

does allow some orchids to be removed from the wild if the proper

authorities decide that the species will not be harmed. However,

this is difficult to do because there is a lot of paperwork to be

filled out, which can take months to process. Also, there is no

guarantee that authorization will be given. The orchid growers

contend that unless CITES makes some concessions to the demand for

these rare orchids, smuggling will continue and more species will

become extinct.

If CITES was amended to allow for easier access to a limited number

of rare or endangered specimens to be used in artificial

propagation, there would be less smuggling and a greater chance

that a species could be preserved in the wild. Orchid growers

believe that overregulation of orchid trade is what has driven the

price of orchids up, which in turn leads to smuggling. Most species

of orchids can be bred from seed to produce thousands more plants,

or else they can be cloned to produce the same amount. Cloning is

a relatively new technique in the orchid world and it means that

exact replicas of wild orchids can be produced in nurseries. It is

because of the ease of cloning that most orchid growers believe

that plants and animals should be treated

separately under CITES.

Secondly, orchid collectors also contend that some of the orchids

protected under CITES are not exactly rare. Some growers want more

research into which species are truly threatened and which should

no longer be in CITES.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that only 10 percent

of orchid collectors obtain orchids from the wild. Some orchid

growers are quite defensive, saying that the vast majority of law-

abiding orchid growers must put up with extremely cumbersome

regulations because of the actions of the few. Many acknowledge

that the orchid world needs to put more emphasis on conservation

and to educate collectors about threatened and endangered species.

Such work can be accomplished through such organizations as the

American Orchid Society, which has created a conservation

committee.

Although many orchid growers want easier access to rare wild

orchids, most countries are tightening their restrictions on orchid

exports. It is impossible to legally import from countries such as

Borneo, New Guinea, and Costa Rica.

The orchid growers make some legitimate complaints about CITES.

Since a single specimen can be cloned into thousands of specimens,

it is probably acceptable to allow a very small number of

endangered orchids to be used in this manner. It will at least

ensure that the species survives. However, deciding who to allow to

clone a plant that will be in high demand would be a tricky

question. If every rare plant could be made widely available on the

open market, smuggling would decline because it is in part

dependent on providing access to rare and unique specimens.

However, it would not completely disappear, because no nursery can

completely replicate all of the genetic diversity and mutations

found in nature. Poachers would no doubt continue to seek out new

species from remote areas to satisfy the needs of compulsive

collectors. Completely denying access to something people strongly

desire rarely works, yet creating easier access will not

necessarily eliminate the problem. Additionally, revising CITES

will do nothing to bring down the price of nursery-produced

orchids, which is one reason smuggling is so prevalent.

At the same time, it is unconscionable what many orchid collectors

are doing in the name of species preservation. In my opinion, it is

much more important to preserve orchids in the wild than in

privately owned greenhouses or in public botanical gardens. Many

orchid collectors are so obsessed with their hobby that they can't

see the forest for the trees: they will destroy the balance of

tropical ecosystems to preserve one species, and they care more

about private ownership of a certain plant than about protecting

nature in the public domain. They should turn their energies to

fighting habitat destruction rather assuming that it is a given.

Fortunately, many Third World countries are already striving to

preserve their environmental heritage. Yet orchid smuggling will

continue so long as the orchid community continues to tolerate it.

3. Related Cases

BULB Case PLANT Case

Keyword Clusters (1): Trade Product (2): Bio-geography (3): Environmental Problem = ORCHID = TROP = Species Loss Land [SPLL]

4. Draft Author:
Renee K. Bury

II. Legal Clusters

5. Discourse and Status:

Agreement and In Progres

There is disagreement between environmentalists and orchid collectors about whether or not CITES is useful in protecting orchid species from extinction. Environmentalists, as well as most of the Third World countries to which orchids are native, believe that orchids must be preserved in their wild state. Orchid collectors say that the strictness of CITES contributes to the smuggling problem and that collectors are necessary to preserve rare species that will be lost forever when their habitats are destroyed. Signatories to CITES meet every two years to discuss and change the treaty. At the last CITES meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, nothing was accomplished in this area. The next CITES meeting will be in Zimbabwe in 1997.

6. Forum and Scope:

CITES and Multilateral

Smuggling is an international problem. Most of the plants are smuggled out of tropical Third World nations and into the United States, Europe, and Japan. International commerce in endangered species of flora and fauna is covered by an international treaty known as CITES. The import of plants and animals into the US is

also covered under the Endangered Species Act.

7. Decision Breadth: 125

There are 125 signatories to CITES. Orchid smuggling affects all those countries which have orchids growing in the wild as well as the countries where most orchid collectors are found, namely the US, Europe, and Japan.

8. Legal Standing: Treaty

III. Geographic Clusters

9. Geographic Locations

a. Geographic Domain: Global

b. Geographic Site:

Global

c. Geographic Impact: Global

10. Sub-National Factors: No

11. Type of Habitat: Tropical

IV. Trade Clusters

12. Type of Measure: Export Ban

Some species of endangered orchids are protected by a complete ban on commercial trade. Other less threatened species may be exported

in special circumstances in small numbers. Due to the paperwork and bureaucracy, it is difficult and time-consuming to legally import an endangered orchid.

13. Direct v. Indirect Impacts: Direct

14. Relation of Trade Measure to Environmental Impact

a. Directly Related to Product: Orchid

b. Indirectly Related to Product:

c. Not Related to Product:

d. Related to Process: Species Loss Land

15. Trade Product Identification: Orchid

16. Economic Data

It is estimated that there is approximately $5 billion worth of plant smuggling each year (this covers all endangered plant species).

17. Impact of Trade Restriction: Medium

Regulations against orchid smuggling preserves the market for commercial nurseries. Orchid smuggling necessitates that countries spend money on law enforcement. Some plants are banned for export, some are highly regulated for export. The price for a very rare $1,000 to

and beautiful wild orchid in the West may be from $2,000.

Orchid smuggling is illegal and does not contribute to

the competitiveness of a nation.

18. Industry Sector: Agriculture

19. Exporters and Importers: Many and Many

V. Environment Clusters

20. Environmental Problem Type: Species Loss Land

21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species

22. Resource Impact and Effect: Scale and High

Many species of orchids are already extinct in the wild, but it is still possible to save most species. This is contingent upon saving orchid habitat, usually rain forest or jungle. This will require regulatory changes: stricter enforcement of rules against orchid smuggling and poaching, better protection of habitat by.

23. Urgency and Lifetime:Medium and na

24. Substitutes: Like

VI. Other Factors

25. Culture: Yes

26. Trans-Boundary Issues: No

27. Rights: No

28. Relevant Literature

BNA Chemical Regulation Daily. "First TSCA PMN Criminal Case Filed;

Import of Chemical, Species, Plants Cited." 19 September 1995.

Dinkelspeil, Frances. "Plant Smugglers Might Go to Prison; U.S.

Crackdown Nets Guilty Pleas." The Times-Picayune.

7 May 1995, p.

A2.

Doyle, Jim. "Black Market Orchids: A global underground smuggling

network may drive some rare species into extinction." The San

Francisco Chronicle. 8 January 1995, p. 6.

Ferrell, David. "Fancying Forbidden Flowers." The Los Angeles

Times.

5 March 1995, p. A1.

Handly, Paul. "In the Pink: Thailand's Orchid Exports Blossom." Far

Eastern Economic Review.

27 February 1992, p. 58-59.

The San Francisco Chronicle. "5-Month Prison Term for Orchid

Smuggler." 15 April 1995, p. A14.

Schevitz, Tanya. "Flesh-eating plants so beguiling they lure 3 men

to commit crime; Members in Bay group plead guilty to smuggling

rare plants into U.S." The San Francisco Examiner. 16 April 1995,

p. C2.

Spald, Elisabeth Levitan. "How Wild Orchids Fare in the U.S. and

Canada." The Christian Science Monitor. 6 August 1992, p. 12. The

Washington Times. "L.A. orchid smuggler gets five-month term." 16

April 1995, p. A2.