Postal delays to Europe?

[manders]

The temperature can be controlled by the pilots, but its typically only heated if carrying live animals, otherwise it can be anywhere from just above freezing to the same as the cabin. Depends on aeroplane type, route and the whims of the pilots.

[marcello catalano]

Hi,

I can confirm that unfortunately our postal service is known to be quite bad, even inside the Country itself. In the last few years there's been some improvement, but the recent economical crisis seems to have worsened things a lot. At least for Milan, where I live. I know that the Postal service had to fire 600 postmen, and some kind of agency was called to get in charge, and in some way "take the place" of those 600 people. This agency seems to have caused quite a mess, and in the last few months tons of letters accumulated in their offices. Recently I've sent book packets to the UK - 10 copies per packet - and I sent them from Turin, where it seems they go straight away without passing through Milan. But still, it takes about 2 weeks for them to arrive, whatever the destination is, UK or Australia. Some letters sent from Milan to Milan will arrive in one week, some others in one day, some letters sent to the UK will arrive in 3 days, some others in two weeks.

About the content of your parcels, I can say this: all plants are allowed to go everywhere in Europe, and any Nepenthes can be legally sent from UK to Italy, to make an example. The problem is that our Custom might be not so sure about that :) If you write "live plants" and the custom finds it, first of all they will stop the packet, then they will think about it, then the parcel will go through our in-famous burocracy ("is this packet legal?" "Mmm, maybe, let's ask the boss, tomorrow" etc...) , and then the packet will arrive, in a few weeks. And maybe the plants will be still alive. Some other times nothing will happen, the Custom will do its job and the plants will arrive in a week. As usual, doing things "illegally" works much better: writing "cd", "books" etc on the packet - as you said - works very well, and it's the best "illegal" way to go through our "legal" burocracy.

About plants sent from out of Europe to Italy, just forget it. Whatever permits you add to your box, CITES or Phytosanitary, in one day they will arrive from Australia, Borneo etc to Italy. Then our Custom will be so impressed by all those strange papers to check, and by that packet of living creatures coming from such far Countries, that the black lake of burocracy where your plants will end up will discourage both seller and buyer, and the plants will die. Even worse if you try with DHL, UPS etc! Still, I know about someone who managed to go around this system and got some plants from Malesiana etc.... once I did that too...

The best way, even with plants from non-EU Countries, is an anonimous packet, with "books" or "electric material" on it...no permits or any other impressive paper, or it will be stopped and bye bye. When to do good things you must go against the law, there's something wrong...

You know, if I go to Thailand, collect 200 plants with their roots and then I go to the Thai CITES office, I'll sign a few papers, pay some money and they will give me my permits for those funny pitcher plants. Then I can go back to the US, show my permits, and go home with my nice specimens, after having damaged a precious wild population. While if I take 3 cuttings and send them to Italy without any permit, to make sure they arrive safe (and then I spread those clones in cultivation around Europe, like I'm doing for conservation purposes), then I do something illegal!!!!!

[manders]

You don't have to label a package at all if its going to the EU or fill in customs slips. Plants however are prohibited from being sent to Italy, period. Its nothing to do with customs or CITES, it's simply that the Italian post office will not accept plants and will destroy them. This is the official position of the Italian Post office according the Royal Mail. Hence you can not get insurance for plants if you sell them on Ebay, because that's the first thing the post office will check for. If they do slip through undetected (most of the time) then you get the normal delays as outlined above.

[marcello catalano]

My god, I'll have to check this. Maybe the EU laws have been updated. Tens of italian growers bought cp from all over europe for 20 years, and they never had problems if not for some delays. And european nurseries never mentioned this was supposed to be illegal (well, WE had to know that). We asked our Forestry department, who basically told us that we should only worry about plants coming from outside the EU, as within the EU plants can be shipped freely, as long as they are artificially produced and there's a paper from the nursery that states what plants they are and where they are going. And that's also what I read on the EU bulletin. But maybe there were some recent changes...! I'll let you know, we got great lawyers in our cps :)

Edited May 15, 2009 by marcello catalano

[manders]

Marcello, I don't think its a question of legality, simply the operating rules of your post office. It would be great if you can get their version of things and then maybe I can get my insurance paid!!!

[jimfoxy]

The only way to get stuff into Russia is to bribe the officials. Maybe there is a similar system in play?

[marcello catalano]

I've been looking on the web for more than an hour. I don't have final reports, but interesting details. On the Royal Mail website it is clearly said that "living creatures" can't be shipped, as that's prohibited, even if some of them can, with just few restrictions. One could say - wrongly - that they mean animals, but 1) plants are of course living creatures and 2) I found a nice article where they tried to find out what strange things can and can't be sent with the Royal Mail, through an interview to some RM officer and: "plants can't be shipped, if to export", which means out of the Country. On all our websites regarding italian custom and postal service I only found references to the CITES and phyto permits, when it comes to non-EU Countries, which is not our case. I found no other reference to any restriction to import plants in Italy from EU, a part from dangerous and invasive plants. But still, I didn't even clearly read the contrary.

Staying on what I said earlier: if you send plants from the uk to out of the uk (illegal) and you don't add a piece of paper from your company that says how the plants were grown in captivity by your nursery, and what species they are (not doing that is illegal), then yes, if the plants are caught, they are definately entering ANY Country illegally and they'll be destroyed and/or the sender and/or the buyer prosecuted. If you ask at any post office, they'll semplify all this simply telling you: you can't send plants to Italy like that, and even less you can demand an insurance to cover that if something happens. But it's not just an italian matter. Maybe that's what happened to you? I'm still waiting for some more informed friends to reply though...

Edited May 15, 2009 by marcello catalano

[manders]

Marcello, lets not get confused between legality and post office rules, it is not illegal to ship plants anywhere in the EU (except for some high risk disease carrying plants), also there are no CITES restrictions within the EU. You shouldn't try and make sense of snippets on the internet, they are largely misleading, you have to phone them directly and talk to somebody who knows what they are talking about. When you do that they will tell you what some postal services will accept and what they wont, the Italian Postal service doesn't accept plants. This is probably just to make life easy for themselves and the question of legality means nothing. The royal mail will happily ship plants to any EU country, provided the post office in that country accepts plants, which in your case they don't.

There is a very clear list of what the royal mail will send and plants aren't on it.

What that means is that most plants will get through undetected, but when they are detected they are destroyed.

The most useful thing you could do is just ask the Italian Post office why they have a restriction on plants...

[jesse]

I found no other reference to any restriction to import plants in Italy from EU, a part from dangerous and invasive plants. But still, I didn't even clearly read the contrary.

You are mixing two things: It is perfectly legal to send plants from one EU country to another EU country.

But the Italian post refuses to transport plants in many cases, because it is against their rules of transportation.

I don't understand much Italian, but as far as I can see on their webpage, they have two different types of parcel service:

- Pacco Ordinario (standard parcel service)

Rules: http://www.poste.it/postali/condizioni_tra...o_ordinario.pdf

==> Plants are not forbidden for "ordinary" parcels.

- Paccocelere 1plus - 3 - Maxi (express parcel service)

Rules: http://www.poste.it/postali/condizioni_tra...ere_exp_naz.pdf

==> Plants ("piante") are forbidden for "express" service parcels.

Only the transportation rules for the express parcel service says, that plants are prohibited in Italy.

???

So ordinary parcels may contain plants, express service parcels may not.

But what happens if a parcel arrives from a country that has no two different parcel types in their own country as Italy seems to have?

Most likely, international parcels will go into the express "Paccocelere" service in Italy by default and plants are forbidden automatically?

Perhaps better use FedEx or something like that when sending plants from another EU country to Italy?

[Edit]Or just say "standard" and not "priority/express" at the post office when asked how to send the parcel? I think European consumer protection tests already have shown, that international parcels run mostly the same time from country to country, independently whether the parcel was sent "standard" or "express/priority".

Edited May 15, 2009 by jesse

[marcello catalano]

Ok then, we can also give as a fact that law does allow plants to be shipped among EU Countries.

Then you say it's just a matter of local rules applied by postal services. Good, at least the field of discussion gets smaller :)

Well, about the Royal Mail, I went on their website, here it is:

http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/content...mp;catId=400044

Living creatures can't be shipped, that's said very clearly and seriously; and plants are living creatures.

Now, I also found out that in Italy - no need to say that packets coming from the EU are not controlled anyway - our post office says that "plants can't be shipped", together with pornographic material etc, the same things listed in the Royal Mail page, in the same order.

This rule actually is applied basically just when someone has his packet broken or lost, he complains, and as soon as he says that it contained living plants, ta-daaaam: "sorry, living plants can't be shipped, it's not our problem anymore". I guess they have plenty of rules to chose from when they don't want to take responsability for something :)

But please note: the same rules apply for the UK postal service too. You can say that fortunately these stupid rules are not applied in the uk, but then I can tell you that thousands of plants have been happily sent from UK (and many other EU countries) to Italy without any problem, so not even here those rules are applied. I guess what happened to you is the same that might happen everywhere: the packets are not controlled, but having a rule that says that plants can't be shipped (or blaming Italy because they don't accept plants) is the best way they have to free themselves from any responsability if the packet is lost, damaged etc.

Edited May 15, 2009 by marcello catalano

[gardenofeden]

Living creatures can't be shipped, that's said very clearly and seriously; and plants are living creatures.

in this context, living creatures=animals

[marcello catalano]

It's a rule of the English language that I don't get? It can't be a matter of context....plants are living creatures...

[manders]

It's a rule of the English language that I don't get? It can't be a matter of context....plants are living creatures...

Creature = Non-human animal,

in english you never refer to a plant as a creature.

[jesse]

Living creatures can't be shipped, that's said very clearly and seriously; and plants are living creatures.

I don't think so (but English is not my mother languare), my understanding of English tells me, that ceatures means animals (not plants).

Did you read the two links at the Italian Post in my last posting about different rules for "Pacco Ordinario" and "Paccocelere"?

Perhaps all problems with sending plants to Italy arise from the instruction and extra payment for "express" or "priority" delivery. If the sender would say "standard" instead, the parcel would go through in Italy, because "Pacco Ordinario" may contain plants according to the Poste Italiane rules.

[marcello catalano]

Oh, other interesting facts! :)

I checked both dictionaries, Italian and English: yes, in your language "creature" excludes plants, in our language "creature" is any living being, including plants. Then yes, even if I will still have to check about the export rules of the Royal Mail (if plants can be exported, as on that article I read the contrary), but there is in fact a difference in the rules of our Countries. Still, believe me, we receive plants from all over Europe, and a part from delays we have no other problems; those rules - that nobody here knows - seem to be only applied when someone complains!

Jesse, for what I've been told, unfortunately the postal rule is quite extended: living creatures (in its italian meaning) just can't be put in any envelope or packet, no matter what sort of expedition is that. But I know what you refer to: strangely, while this rule is hidden but always true, it's clearly mentioned just in the section of "paccocelere" (a faster kind of packet delivery), where they clearly say that plants can't be shipped; I know, that's meaningless, as they should never be shipped...

Edited May 15, 2009 by marcello catalano

[mantrid]

It's a rule of the English language that I don't get? It can't be a matter of context....plants are living creatures...

Plants = living things

Animals = living things or living creatures

Animals & Plants = living organisms

[marcello catalano]

I see. In Italian, instead:

"creatura: ogni essere creato: creature animali, vegetali"

transl:

"creature: any created being: animal creatures, vegetal creatures"

But I'm not sure the word "vegetal" exists in English; you have plants and vegetables, but not vegetals :)... I'm quite sure it exists in French...

Anyway, imagine if all this mess happened because the text was translated from English into Italian and applied without realizing that "creature" and "creatura" have two slightly different meanings!

Edited May 15, 2009 by marcello catalano

[mantrid]

But I'm not sure the word "vegetal" exists in English; you have plants and vegetables, but not vegetals :)... I'm quite sure it exists in French...

When refering to animals and plants in an ecological sense we use

Flora = plants

Fauna = animals

In general conversation we can refer to plants as vegatation or even vegetable, as in "Its hard to tell if he is animal or vegetable" a humerous insult

[gardenofeden]

mantrid wrote

The royal mail will happily ship plants to any EU country, provided the post office in that country accepts plants,

this is the bottom line. Royal Mail will not ship to Italy or France because these countries do not accept plants from the UK

Many plants are sent, and many get through, but if asked the official answer is NO.

[mantrid]

Mantrid Wrote

The royal mail will happily ship plants to any EU country, provided the post office in that country accepts plants,

this is the bottom line. Royal Mail will not ship to Italy or France because these countries do not accept plants from the UK

Many plants are sent, and many get through, but if asked the official answer is NO.

I didn't Say this??

.

Edited May 16, 2009 by mantrid

[gardenofeden]

sorry, it was manders

[manders]

I see. In Italian, instead:

"creatura: ogni essere creato: creature animali, vegetali"

transl:

"creature: any created being: animal creatures, vegetal creatures"

But I'm not sure the word "vegetal" exists in English; you have plants and vegetables, but not vegetals :)... I'm quite sure it exists in French...

Anyway, imagine if all this mess happened because the text was translated from English into Italian and applied without realizing that "creature" and "creatura" have two slightly different meanings!

The archaic meaning of creature in English does include all living things as in 'all of gods creatures' it just doesn't mean that any more in modern English.

I'm not sure why the text would have been translated from English to Italian? Presumably the documents were written in Italian if they were written by the Italian post office.

Anyway as it stands, posting to Italy (& France) is a risk, albeit a small one.

[marcello catalano]

The fact is that I had found a list of what can't be basically "put in an envelope" here in italy, and the order of things was the same as the Royal Mail. So I suspected there could be a common origin, that wouldn't be so strange. In that case, our Poste Italiane just took that document and translated it into Italian. Before any other comment, I'm waiting for an answer by Mr. Aga, who's known by many of you. He works for Poste Italiane. He had personally never heard of any problem about plants from the UK, but he's simply going to ask in the offices around there how things work.

I think it's much less than a matter of luck: if you manage to send plants from there (and some of you said their post offices won't give any problem), the plants will be readily accepted here, even if that's not the official position of Poste Italiane. Problems (and official positions) will only rise as soon as your packet is lost or damaged and you complain or want your money back, in which case our postal service will be forced to take the official rules out of the box and use them. Otherwise, every now and then, we should hear about Uk sellers who have seen their packets destroyed because they contained plants, which is not the case. But it's not so difficult to write on the packet "books"; or - if the packet is destroyed or lost and you want your money back - it's not so difficult to say to your insurance that the content was books, if you know about this problem. As far as I know, and as far as we're talking about EU, here there's no control, packets come and go freely. I even read about packets dropping liquid (you know, sphagnum, soil etc), and the post office would just add a piece of paper with "please be careful with packaging, next time". I mean, as long as it's not blood coming out of the packet, if it's from EU they won't care! But I'll wait aga for the details.

Edited May 16, 2009 by marcello catalano

[Mike King]

Having checked with my local DEFRA officer, there should be no restriction to plants anywhere around the EU countries so for whatever reason, France seems to make an exception. Answer is really not to state anything on the packet as it will only arouse attention. Out of the many parcels that I send, only one seems to have gone astray..