Folks, for those of you that don't know Lucy, here's a
little background.
About two years ago, Lucy called me up as I was the only
person in the world with access to a species- one that happened to be
of particular interest to Lucy as it was smack dab in the middle of
the molecular phylogeny she was working on. I said I'd be happy to
provide her with the material she requested- pressed, dried,
non-propagatable material of a federally protected orchid that nobody
else was (or is) growing in cultivation. Of course, when I checked
with the feds, it turns out permits were required to move them
between states. What with Lucy and her lab being in Georgia and me
and the plants being in Arizona, this presented a bit of a challenge.
Lucy completed those permits- which included a mandatory
publication and 30-day review in the National Register- after which
point I sent her the samples. Counting those pages in the Register,
not to mention the heartbreaking work just to write up the request,
probably outweighed the samples about 10,000 or 100,000 to 1. All
that for one data point. Such is bureaucracy.
Her group- the Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL)- is in a
bit of a pinch. Y'all are just going to have to take my word for
this: for the amount of work that happens per dollar paid out, we- us
orchid growers- are getting a lot out of U-GA's field station.
Some of you may recall when the Smithsonian tried to shut
down their Conservation and Research Center back in 2001- 3200 acres
of some of the most important conservation work going on in America
right now. The Secretary of the Smithsonian repealed the closure
proposal when the value of the facility was revealed.
Right about now would be a good time to do the same thing
for SREL. Please read the missive below and follow the link enclosed within.
Cheers,
-AJHicks
Chandler, AZ
>Dear NOC members,
>
>Many of you know me from NOC talks on my Spiranthes genetics project
>to determine their "family tree", which was funded initially by the
>American Orchid Society. We presented further results this year at
>the International Orchid Conservation Congress, and intend to
>publish at least 2 papers in scientific journals. This project
>could not have happened without the help of many NOC members who
>collected samples for it.
>
>The lab portion of the Spiranthes project has been carried out over
>the past 4-5 years at my workplace, Savannah River Ecology Lab
>(SREL), a field research station for the University of Georgia,
>established 56 years ago to ecologically monitor activities on the
>Savannah River Site (the nuclear production facility during the cold
>war).
>
>But now SREL will be forced to close at the end of May, _in less
>than 4 weeks_, because the US Dept. of Energy, our main sponsor,
>won't release our funding as promised. More details can be found at
>this website: <http://www.savesrel.org/.>http://www.savesrel.org/.
>
>We need all the letters we can get to petition the key decision-
>makers to reverse their decision about the SREL funding halt. A
>list of appropriate people to write/email/call is listed at the end
>of the "summary" webpage on the above website. If you are so
>inclined, please take the time to review the information and help us
>by contacting these people to protest their decision.
>
>Thank you,
>Lucy Dueck
_______________________________________________
the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD)
orchids@orchidguide.com
http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
