collecting Orchids

In my opinion, orchids should never be collected from the wild, with a few exceptions. Exceptions I can think of are: rescue situations where the plants will be destroyed or die without collection; collection of small numbers of plants for scientific and identification purposes, under appropriate regulations and permits. Personally, I am not opposed to small scale collection of wild seed to propagate a species.

I agree with Ray that habitats are being destroyed at an alarming rate. Wild collection for personal or financial gain just exacerbates the dire situation.

Some will argue that all orchids in cultivation now originated from wild collected stock. True. That was then, this is now. We now have reasonably successful seed and tissue propagation techniques and collection, with limited exceptions, should not occur.