2ND MEETING
OF
MESOAMERICAN REGIONAL ORCHID SPECIALIST GROUP

2ND MEETING OF MESOAMERICAN REGIONAL ORCHID SPECIALIST GROUP

Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA, February 13, 2003

The first Meeting of the Mesoamerican Regional Orchid Specialist Group (OSG-Mesoamerica), IUCN/SSC, was held at the Universidad de Costa Rica on May 25th, 2001, as part of the activities of the 2nd Mesoamerican Seminar on Orchidology and Conservation, organized by the Jard’n Bot‡nico Lankester, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR). The Chairman of Orchid Specialist Group, Philip Cribb, and the Regional Director of IUCN for Mesoamerica, Enrique Lahmann, attended the meeting, as well as 12 OSG members, representatives of six Central American and Caribean countries. During the meeting Jorge Warner was appointed as the Regional Chairman for the OSG-Mesoamerica and Jardin Botanico Lankester, UCR, as the headquarters for the Group.

The OSG-Mesoamerica defined the following, preliminary schedule for future work:

1. To divulge the new edition of the Orchid Conservation Action Plan published in the Orchid Conservation News bulletin, with the aim to evaluate in the countries of the area the present conservation status of native orchid species.
2. To promote the updating of threatened species lists by members of the group, due to the lack of reliable information for many areas within the concerned region.
3. To establish mechanisms aimed to divulge information among members of the group.
4. To write a technical proposal intended to exclude dry and pickled material from CITES regulations.
5. To create a committee to test a selected number of orchid species against the criteria suggested by IUCN for evaluation of risk categories. The dissemination among members of the evaluation criteria adopted in Mexico was also suggested.

The 2nd Meeting of OSG-Mesoamerica intent to gather in Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala, specialists to define common strategies aimed to promote conservation of the most threatened species in each of the countries.

The work program for the 2nd Meeting include the following objectives:

a. To promote that members of the Group will be instrumental to the updating of country lists of threatened and endemic orchid species.
b. To identify for each country the laws intended to avoid collecting and trade of wild orchid specimens.
c. To identify mechanisms designed to quantify orchid trade in each of the countries in the region as well as their reliability.
d. To identify the existence and reliability of mechanisms intended to monitor illegal orchid trade between countries that are members of the Group.
e. To appoint in each country a representative of the Group.
f. To define an agenda for the 3rd Meeting of the Group, scheduled for next May 23th in San JosŽ, Costa Rica, as part of the activities of the 1st International Conference on Neotropical Orchidology (Ciudad de la Investigaci—n, Universidad de Costa Rica, May 21-25).

When: Thursday, February 13th, 2003, from 9:00 to 17:00 hours, as part of the activities of the Guatemalan Orchid Society Show*.
Where: Sal—n de los Presidentes, Edificio ANACAFE, Avenida La Americas, Zona 14, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala.

* Participants are welcome to attend the openning of the orchid show, Wednesday night (Q 25.00 per person)

For further information, please contact the OSG-Mesoamerica Chairman, Jorge Warner, to the following addresses:

Jardin Botanico Lankester, Universidad de Costa Rica
P.O. Box 1031-7050 Cartago
Costa Rica. C.A.
Phone (506) 552-3247
Fax (506) 552-3151
jwarner@cariari.ucr.ac.cr
jbl@cariari.ucr.ac.cr

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