MISSION CRITICAL!
Study stresses urgent need to curb online sales of rare wild plants, writes Ian Hodgson
The online global trade in rare wild plants is pushing some species to the brink of extinction, a new study has found. Cacti, succulents, orchids and sought-after medicinal plants are at particular risk, with sellers openly flouting international conservation regulations to meet demand from buyers eager to own the ‘real thing’ and who are either unaware or don’t ask too many questions.
‘Plant blindness’
Among those most at risk are slowgrowing cacti such as ariocarpus from Mexico and small succulent euphorbia from Madagascar. They are listed on CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), an international protocol between governments that aims to ensure international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.
“People are more readily seduced by the plight of attractive animals than plants, which are often taken for granted or seen as less important,” said Kew CITES science officer David Whitehead. “We term this ‘plant blindness’, as plants can be poached just as much as animals and it doesn’t take long for a few illegal collectors to inflict devastating consequences on wild populations.”
But dealers may be foiled by a crack team. Spear-headed by researchers from Kew and Southampton University, and also employing agents from Border Force, which controls UK imports and exports, the project, called FloraGuard, uses state-ofthe-art digital espionage techniques to digitally comb through online sources of interest. The team identified cyber-hotspots, such as e-commerce websites or
Cactus often take many decades to reach maturity social media platforms, forums, blogs and chatrooms, where potentially suspect conversations were being staged. While the majority of sales were legal and involved nurserygrown plants, in some cases forum users were observed exchanging advice on how to conduct illegal imports of specimens via different shipping and postal services.
Growing online trade
A study of online trade in 2010 found 90 per cent of sales for CITESprotected cactus species were sold without controls in place, while in 2017, 109 threatened cactus species were for sale on 11 online auction sites.
While only a small proportion of cacti were from wild sources, unclear use of plant names made it impossible to identify which species were being sold. There are also significant and growing numbers of wild-collected cactus and succulent plant species not on CITES lists being poached and trafficked for sale. The online orchid trade has grown substantially, with significant threat of illegal trading in some species.
The FloraGuard report identifies a 2016 study of around 55,000 social media posts over a 12-week period in which nine per cent of posts involved the sale of plants. Of these, 22–46 per cent related to plants considered potentially wild sourced and of dubious legality. A 2017 survey of
800 orchid collectors found around 10 per cent admitted to some form of smuggling, nearly five per cent admitted to laundering plants, and more than 10 per cent had received orchids from online purchases without correct paperwork.
The report also identifies that within the EU, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Belgium were considered by some online users to be potential ‘weak links’ through which illegal imports might be made. Countries within Asia, including China and Japan, appeared to share a similar reputation. “We’ve also had reported spikes in collecting activity during lockdown,” added David. “The situation is very complex. We need to better understand the nature of the criminal activity, the supply chain and end market destination. There’s not one ‘silver bullet’ solution. With lots of people working on the issue globally, hopefully solutions will emerge that can be tailored to specific trafficking problems in different parts of the world.”