Andrew,
I am sorry you had a frustrating experience with your intentions of
relocating plants back into the wild. Be assured that The Nature Conservancy
does work strongly in terms of land stewardship. It does not just try to
keep land frozen. Identifying stresses on the land, removing exotics, and
rejuvenating the natural balance is the emphasis. I can't say what was their
motivation in not wanting your plants, but I could theorize. If I were
responsible for stewarding rubra jonesii populations and you approached me,
I would have the following concerns...
1)I need to be 1000000% sure your plants are 100% pure S.rubra jonesii. Any
accidental S.purpurea crossings will irrevocably destroy the populations at
the site. Are your seedlings direct from the bog seeds, or did you do ANY
floral propagation (i.e. non-vegetative).
2)I need to be 1000000% sure your plants do not carry any new viruses or
pests. Are you? This includes in the soil
3)Because of the differences in populations, I want only seedlings from
bog #1 to be transplanted back into bog #1. Is this the case?
4)Your plants are plants that are adapted well to culture in a
greenhouse and not necessarily plants that have been selected for life
in the wild. This is not a fatal problem, just an observation.
I could think of more problems but I just wanted to point out a few
obvious concerns.
There are times that various conservation concerns will have problems with
each other---for example your well-intentioned efforts and those of The
Nature Conservancy. But the point is that both of you are working 90% in
the same direction. Getting irritated at them because of minor differences
with their are so many more major similarities is, I think, not necessarily
useful.
Barry