Info to Cactus Collectors

[hegar]

Daiv asked me to let you know a few things about what I do. I am working at the U.S./Mexico border and as part of my work I am responsible for rescuing mainly wild-collected cacti arriving from Mexico, which - as you most likely already know - has a vast variety of cacti. Unfortunately, many of the plants are dug up without much care and thus arrive in fair to bad condition, oftentimes with their roots missing and possible rot organisms already present in their stems. I keep the plants at my work place in quasi quarantine until I have named them to the best of my ability and a Plant Rescue Center (PRC)has been assigned to them. The PRC's are public, non-profit organizations like zoos, botanical gardens, arboreta, etc.. There are 80 of them in the U.S.A..
Travelers need to know, that it is a violation of Mexican laws to take wild cactus plants and move them out of the country. In addition, the U.S. government has tightened the plant import regulations to such an extent, that it is not financially worth it to import plants or other propagative units like seeds. For any propagative unit arriving at the border the traveler will have to bring a phytosanitary certificate from the country of origin, which is oftentimes hard to obtain and also expensive. For plants that are protected by the CITES regulations, which includes most cacti, there is also the requirement of a CITES export certificate from the originating country, which may be difficult to obtain. If the documentation is incomplete or lacking, the plants or seeds will be confiscated and the material either destroyed or - if valuable enough and CITES protected - it will be sent to a Plant Rescue Center.

Harald