CODE OF PRACTICE FOR COLLECTING SPECIMENS

Destruction of habitats and pollution are much the most important causes of damage to insect populations. Although rarely a major issue, inappropriate collecting of insect can be harmful, hence the need for this Code.

Our    main concern is to prevent significant damage to populations, especially those of rare and vulnerable species. For that reason a policy is needed to reconcile the need to collect and preserve specimens of insects with the need for the conservation of species and habitats.  There is an apparent conflict between, on the one hand, the requirement that species recorders, educators and scientists be able to examine and re-examine preserved specimens from certain taxa and certain localities in the light of future knowledge and, on the other hand, the general distaste among conservationists and others for killing any organism, either on ethical grounds or because of a perception that to do so might endanger the viability of a local population.

The following have been adapted from the Code for Insect Collecting formulated by the Joint Committee for the Conservation of British Insects in 1972, and still current:

Principle 1.  To respect life, in the form of species, communities and habitats.

1.1. Unless needed for education or scientific research, no larval or adult insect should be killed, either as a sequel to capture or through habitat destruction.  Of these two types of intervention, the second is by far the more serious as a threat to the continuity of insect populations.

1.2 Insects should only be held captive for good scientific reasons, under conditions that do not expose them to avoidable stress, and for no longer than necessary.

1.3  Specimens of insect that have been collected should not be offered for sale.

1.4 Recognising that sometimes scientific study will require a series of specimens to be secured, no more specimens should be collected than are needed.  The collector should always exercise discrimination and restraint and proceed in a spirit consistent with the principles espoused in the code.

1.5  The habitat in which specimens are being collected should be damaged as little as possible.

1.6    Specimens of one species should not be collected in large numbers year after year   from the same locality in the same season.

Principle 2.  To comply with existing regulations

2.1    We operate within the Peruvian legal and civil framework, and coordinate with village, local and regional authorities. We know them, and they know us.

2.2    Before any insect is collected, or collected material exported from Perú, we will make all arrangament in order to get a peruvian permit discharging all relevant regulations.

2.3    All collecting fees will be pay to Peruvian goberment.

2.4    We are committed to our location. We strongly support sustainable and ecologically responsible conservation, research, education, humanitarian, and community development initiatives in the Amazon.  We will invest 5% percent of price of collecting trips in school and students in the local comunity that we visit, in order to promote environmental awareness in them.

2.5    When the collecting site is a nature reserve or a site of known interest to conservationists, a list of species collected should be supplied in due course to the owner or managing authority, whether or not to do so is a requirement when permission is granted.

2.6    We always seek permission from the landowner or occupier when working on private land. Conditions laid down by the grantors of permission must always be complied with.