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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Davidbr" data-source="post: 1658938" data-attributes="member: 58902">Yes, I respect your point of view - I can't pretend I agree with it, though. Personally, I am and always will be firmly against suppression; partly I suppose it's for selfish reasons, the sheer frustration about the lack of information on plant sites (not just regarding native rarities) that's available out there. If I'd wanted to see an Eastern Crowned Warbler this autumn, I'd have known where to go within hours; apart from the BSBI's atlases (about which I seriously doubt the accuracy, they claim some bizarre records...) and some local floras which are usually 5, 6, 7 years out of date by the time they're in print, it's like trying to get blood out of a stone even finding directions to plants that grow on my doorstep. I wouldn't describe myself as a plant twitcher, exactly, but at the start of the year I set myself a target of photographing 1500 species in the wild (UK species) this season - unfortunately I fell about 100 short, but by this time next year I'm determined to have made 2000. And since I'd happily use information provided by others to help me, I'd feel a certain moral obligation to provide the same help in return.I make my photos available to several websites (in particular John Somerville's excellent <a href="http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/" target="_blank">British Wild Flowers</a>), as well as posting a thread on my progress on the Wild About Britain forum. All photos are labelled with name, date & location and, in June, I received a request by PM on WaB to suppress that information with regards to Fen Orchid, Liparis loeselii, from Upton Fen in Norfolk. I refused, instead adding a note to my thread explaining exactly why I disagreed fundamentally with keeping such information the property of a privileged few.I've heard that things were the same in birding in the 1980's, whereby you had to know the right people to have any hope of getting information on rarities. The internet, and pagers, have changed all that; I sincerely hope the same happens in the botanical world. Because I believe, if you want to conserve something and make people care about a species that's about to disappear, there's no better way than to show it to them face-to-face. The Round-headed Leek, Allium sphaerocephalon, has become part of local culture at its only UK site at the Avon Gorge, Bristol - guided walks are held to show it, and the other Gorge rarities, to the public and as a result, people care what happens to these plants - and when the people care, the councils and quangos with cash to hand out start paying more attention too.It's great news to hear the Ghost Orchid still survives, but imagine the boost that would have been given to its chances if one of these sites had been made public? Camera crews and reporters covering the event, all putting their hands in their pockets, donations coming in... you could even have wardened the site, and charged people a fee to see it; I'd bet thousands would have gladly paid, say, £3, for the chance of a peek and a photograph. Ultimately, public opinion is the only thing that's going to ensure the long-term survival of these kind of rarities. And the only way to win that sort of public opinion is to actually show them to the public - it's worked wonders with Ospreys, for example, and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust must make a mint from the Stone Curlews at Weeting Heath.</blockquote>

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