Missing the intent of the law

[Julian Sprung]

Dear Coral list,

OK, I am going to try this again. I don't know why the complete message did
not go through the first time.

I received this message on another list and thought I'd share it with you

The situation described below highlights a problem of "enforcement" of
Cites. While I support the Cites protection of corals and feel it is a
valuable tool for tracking the trade and keeping it legitimate, there is a
problem when issues of taxonomy become the matter upon which enforcement is
decided.

Personally, I don't think we should expect Fish and Wildlife officers to be
taxonomists! It is clear that coral taxonomists don't necessarily agree
among themselves on some details, so how can anyone reasonably base an
enforcement decision on taxonomy?

I think this would be a worthwhile subject to address at the ICRS in Bali