I agree again Copper. It is a "look, don't touch" conservation system. Poaching and collecting are very different. I saw this when reading the description on FTS's rehdear giant venus flytrap. Matt collected, tissue cultured, then returned many VFT's back into their bog and no harm done! He actually increased the amount of flytraps by taking 1.
But I would like to add another category to the poaching and collecting. That category is the stupid. The stupid are like this guy, and I will compare everything to him:
hello-from-florida-t45910.html (last post, the guy abandoned ship when I informed him, but I got a quote)
What were his motives?
Well, he may have thought "oh, I will save these poor plants by digging them up and selling them to another country! Why, North American pitcher plants surely are conserved in Pakistan!" He literally stole from our country and decimated a bog.
He might have been poaching, as his username suggested, but he said it too nonchalantly.
He may have thought he could then wear a sticker saying "I saved a bug eating plant" and merely had this as something to check off his bucket list.
Either of these options deserves a category, the stupid.
Our world is drastically changing. Not many people have things other than coronavirus on their minds. Before the coronavirus, few have heard of more CPs than the "houseplant" the venus flytrap, and are unaware of conservation efforts never mind other plants. Even if they did know, why send money to helping an ugly orchid with cups hanging off it, when you can save adorable koalas?
Overall, the world is not moving faster than the human race, and it never will. We can't take back the intense coal burning we did in the 1800s, or the nuclear spills nowadays. No matter the amount of serious conservation can take those back. We need to focus on the future. Collect plants, propagate them, replenish them, rebuild habitats, and save our treasure like the Native Americans.
And it does only take one person to ruin it for everyone. I agree it is frustrating, but they cannot allow everyone back in as poaching will speed up again. The issue is there is no way to distinguish good from bad, conservationists from poachers, therefore sites must stay unopened as sad as it is.
"Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining." - Theodore Roosevelt