But taking the names, the personalities and the suggestion of patronage out of it - we have the CITES convention. Three of Ms Chan's plants were listed as CITES banned for trade, and one is an invasion species. So, why did BAHA give it the green light? Mai gets around this by saying CITES is not domestic law yet. Here's his interview from Sunday and the response form the PSU president yesterday:
Hon. Jose Mai - Minister of Agriculture
"Forestry has said that we are signatories to CITES which are multi-lateral convention on for the protection of endangered species, animal and plant and so on. But these are CITES and they are not yet laws. As a matter a fact that CITES bill is still in committee, at committee stage. So you cannot act before the law is passed, so that was where both technicians, the technical people from BAHA and forestry were having a problem, right?"
Dean Flowers - President, PSU
"I know that the country of Belize his a signatory to the CITES convention so if we are a signatory to the convention, we have pledged with our international counterparts that we will participate and do all that we can to protect certain species, so how is it then that you can turn around and say, well, we are a signatory to a convention but we didn't ratify that in law, soh...we won't pay any attention to that. This is unacceptable behavior coming form our member sin Cabinet. We are a country of laws, we have a duty and an obligation to these conventions, the fact that we have been irresponsible or have not moved fast enough to enact them in law, should not remove the obligation that is on us to be partners in the international trade against anything that is illegal."
