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Poaching

Is there any way to report people who poach Nepenthes seeds and sell them on ebay? It really bothers me that people do this
 
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/items-ov.html#reporting
Reporting policy violations

If you see a listing that violates one of our policies, report it by clicking Report item in the listing.

If we determine that a listing has violated a policy, we email the seller and the bidders or the buyer to let them know that we've removed the listing from eBay.

Good luck. Ebay has dumbed down the reporting process and just has a limited drop down of categories of why you are reporting the item. I've reported endangered species sales of Sarracenia seeds before. Ebay never got back to me nor did have they removed the listings. They don't have a category on the drop down for plants or seeds.
 
Thanks, filed two reports. There's a category for plants, animals, and wildlife now in the reports.
 
I have a question:

How do you distinguish the difference between seed poached form wild plants vs. seeds collected from propagated plants? Region could certainly play a part, certainly, but not conclusively, unless the seller is openly stating they were collected from wild plants (which may or may not be in accordance with local law.)

A label of "endangered" alone does not mean trade is illegal. In some cases, endangered species are legitimately propagated and sold in the name of conservation. Wollemi pine comes to mind, and I could cite a few examples with animals, too, where the captive population far outnumbers the wild population, thus making trade in that species completely legal.
 
Thats the problem Im running into. literally every seed that looks awesome on ebay, members here are telling me theyre poached.
There is no sure fire way to say if theyre legit or not and that bugs me quite a bit. Ebay wont take down listings either because
in reality, nobody knows except the seller, and even if they did contact the seller or even saw the plant the seeds CAME from,
nobody will have a conclusive answer.
 
You are bidding on Nepenthes Aristolochioides from area near Mt.Tujuh (West Sumatra province

Could this be your answer?
 
Could this be your answer?

Yes. That is the only answer you need consider. If someone offers to sell you Nepenthes aristolochioides seeds, you can be 99.99% certain they have been poached from the species habitat.
 
Yes. That is the only answer you need consider. If someone offers to sell you Nepenthes aristolochioides seeds, you can be 99.99% certain they have been poached from the species habitat.

What a shame. You know I actually saw all these seeds and considered getting some before noticing they might be poached, but before even then I noticed with the shipping time that by the time they got to me their viability would be significantly reduced
 
  • #10
I considered that before I reported him. Since all of the pictures in the listings are of plants that are in the wild I think its safe to assume they're from wild plants. Either way, I contacted him inquiring about the source of his seeds and this is the reply I got:
hi

they're from wild habitat
responsibly harvested from wild

thank you

- ****************
 
  • #12
I considered that before I reported him. Since all of the pictures in the listings are of plants that are in the wild I think its safe to assume they're from wild plants. Either way, I contacted him inquiring about the source of his seeds and this is the reply I got:
hi

they're from wild habitat
responsibly harvested from wild

thank you

- ****************

Wow, basically admitting that they are doing some poaching.
 
  • #13
Not just 'some' poaching. When you look at how many species of pods they have, and add in that there are dozens of pods for each listing, it's a massive amount of pods poached. Some species DO make dozens or even hundreds of pods per spike, but that doesn't make it OK. The species that only make a few pods per spike, such as aristo, make so little seed they can barely sustain the population as is. The wild populations simply cannot support this kind of harvesting.

That being said, I see nothing wrong with TRULY sustainable harvesting of only one or two pods at a time, but never plants. Just my $0.02.
 
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  • #14
If we all petitioned eBay do you think we could get this person banned from selling seeds on there?
 
  • #15
If we all petitioned eBay do you think we could get this person banned from selling seeds on there?

It is not in eBay's best interests to pursue such things. But good luck.
 
  • #16
This interminable hand-wringing is wholly hypocritical and self serving; and springs up on Terraforums with the periodicity and enjoyment of an incipient cold sore.

It is one thing to uproot a plant in its entirety and quite another to take an occasional seed pod. If you don't like a product, simply don't purchase it. Easy-peasy. When the f*ck did we become a country of mealy mouth petty informants, ratting out some piss-poor guy in SE Asia, trying to make a few bucks?

Over the years, I have given away or sold more tissue cultured plants, based upon a couple dozen air-mailed seeds, collected from the wild, personally or otherwise, than I can readily count -- statistically, far more plants, in orders of magnitude, than would have survived, had those same seeds simply dropped to the ground.

One site in Luzon, where I obtained seed some years ago, is now a massive golf resort and condo complex, catering to the Hong Kong Chinese; and those forests and plants no longer exist at all.

This plant growing community and allied sites have demanded more and more exotic species in recent years (some of whom PM me on a regular basis, looking for plants, and have, whiningly, contributed to this very thread; you know who you are); and those seed sellers, overseas, are there to supply that demand. Were it not for that pre-existing market, the sellers would simply go back to selling poorly-silk-screened t-shirts with gibberish English phrases that I have seen throughout SE Asia for decades.

If you believe, for a millisecond, that any of those exotic nurseries overseas -- many of whom here, sing their continual praises on this forum, and owe the bulk of their collections to them -- exclusively collect their plant materials in some "morally acceptable" above-board manner, I have an attractive 1937 suspension bridge for sale, painted in a striking International Orange, within a few miles of me, available at a most reasonable price . . .
 
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  • #17
To be fair, David, I would state that my objection is that many novices buy these seeds and - clueless about raising these plants from seed - kill the seeds in a few short weeks, or if they do germinate any they don't survive their first 12 months, through neglect or inability to provide basic needs. We ALL know people on this forum have gone down that road and many more will do so when these seeds are made so readily available. If only it were possible to idiot-proof this process. But hey - people want what they want, and thats that.
 
  • #18
These threads do amuse.
 
  • #19
Even if you only buy plants that have been cultivated through tissue culture or from seed that has been produced in house @ a respectable nursery, at some point down the line those species were removed from the wild either in seed form or stem cutting.

Unlike some who think all wild collection is wrong or immoral, I am a firm believer in conservation through cultivation. At some point plants, seeds, and / or cuttings have to be removed from the wild to be propagated. But a lot of the poaching that's going on by eBay vendors is excessive and damaging to wild populations. But as long as people are buying them, poaching will continue. Do you think these poachers care about the long-term survival of a plant species more than they care about being able to buy food for themselves? Truth is there's no way to stop people from doing it, at least not by sitting at our desks in front of our computers flaming about it on forums in our air conditioned homes.

That being said, I have been guilty in the past of purchasing seeds from these vendors overseas on more than one occasion. I am very skilled at germinating and growing them and a good number of the plants I have in my collection came from seed pods that I had purchased from someone in Indonesia who no doubt collected them from the wild. I have used these plants as trade material and sold a few on eBay as well. I have ceased purchasing pods a while ago because the seeds were very often mislabeled, some never made it to me, and ultimately I didn't need any more plants. I've made the mistake of unintentionally distributing plants that were mislabeled even to a few members of this forum and that's one of the main problems with purchasing and growing out these seeds in the first place. Even if people were able to grow the plants out from seed, most growers wouldn't know if their plants were misidentified or not until they reach maturity.

My concern is the rate at which these seed pods are being harvested, the people buying them who have no clue about how to raise them, or people who can raise them just fine but are negligent in tending to them and ultimately killing them. For instance, I know one person not far from me (member of this forum) that bought some seeds from one of those vendors and he got several to germinate but forgot to water for a few days and they all died. What a complete waste. In his mind he's thinking, "oh well, it was only a few bucks". In my mind I'm thinking, "someone just let genetically unique lowland Nepenthes plants die because he's too stupid to spray them with water that's sitting in a bottle right next to the plants!". And truth be told the vast majority, though not all, of seeds are being purchased by individuals like this. But that's not going to stop any time soon so complaining about it here is a waste of time.

So I say if you have a problem with buying poached seeds, then don't do it. If you are worried you might get misidentified seeds and that it may take a few years to get the correct ID of the plants you are growing, then don't do it. If you want to try growing Nepenthes from seed and don't mind flushing a few bucks down the drain in order to gain experience, then the eBay vendors might be right for you. Just know you will be getting seeds that may not germinate, might be misidentified, may not arrive at all, and were most definitely poached from a wild population. If none of that makes you lose sleep at night then go for it.
 
  • #20
If you want to try growing Nepenthes from seed and don't mind flushing a few bucks down the drain in order to gain experience, then the eBay vendors might be right for you. Just know you will be getting seeds that may not germinate, might be misidentified, may not arrive at all, and were most definitely poached from a wild population. If none of that makes you lose sleep at night then go for it.

If there are new people that have recently joined the hobby and fall under the category mentioned above. Flushing a few bucks on hybrid seed carries more weight, one benefit is obviously if they hypothetically they do die, it's no real loss, and secondly hybrid seed is generally a lot easier to sustain and faster growing than species seed.

I have in the past year been making a few hybrid attempts and have given away about 1/2 the available seed from the different crosses with some success in germination, I'd be just as happy to start selling it to anyone that wants to try their luck with germination. Maybe there should be a thread dedicated solely to the sale of hybrid seed, that way people can chip in from time to time what they have available and possibly will ease the burden on some of the wild seed populations, at the same time I'm a bit skeptical that it would really work as a large number of growers are either limited for space or carry the elitist view that only species are worthy of cultivation. I'll have some seed available in a few months if people are keen to try. That's my 2cents for the day :blush:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/35414385@N03/14314189626/in/photostream/
 
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