Some crazy-huge rafflesianas...

[sooxiwei]

I do agree on cultivation and tissue cloning as a good way for conservation, for my personal concern is, how things are done, take EP as an example, based in Australia, you got to know how difficult it is to get things in and out of Australia, for the price, can't blame them much since there are way too many barrier to get things out or into that country...but aren't they selling seeds grown plant even though it is clone from seeds, for me, you or whoever are into nepenthes keeping, can you imagine how long does it take for a nep to flower? It is not something that flower easily, bare in mind that male and female is not from the same plant(TIMING ISSUES EVEN IF YOU GOT A LARGE QUANTITY LIKE OUR FEW PLAYERS WHO GOT PRISON FOR THEM)...if they were to purposely come over to get a small cut of plants, a cutting or two, how much would it cost them? With all the process of quarantine and so on, you think a cutting or two can survive that process? How long would it take for a nep to flower for them in order for them to pollinate their nep before going for TC...

If we were to religiously believe that the current way to cloning conservation is good enough, then prepare to say bye bye to other variation of a species/hybrid that are going to be burned down during illegal deforestation...AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, TO LIMIT OURSELVES TO WHAT IS THERE TODAY INSTEAD OF IMPROVING FOR A BETTER TOMORROW...

Originally Posted by paphioboy

Siwei, ok this is my view. I do not know if the companies who do TC do return plants to the wild, but if you just take this into consideration... Firstly, what makes you think they take the entire plant? For tissue culture, a small portion of the plant with a meristem is more than enough. So at most (if they are responsible), they would take only 1 or 2 cuttings off the mother plant, but the end result is many many more plants if you compare with taking a cutting, planting it, waiting for it to grow before cutting again to propagate. Think of how much TC companies have reduced pressure on the demand for wild CPs..! Every little plantlet that they sell satisfies the demand of a consumer to obtain a nepenthes, which otherwise would be obtained through illegal means (poaching). Hope this makes you understand better because Tc is definitely a good thing for conservation...