A biodiversity hotspot in a remote part of South Africa has become the center of an illegal trade in protected plant species, with organized crime groups profiting from overseas demand.
“They haven’t just stolen our land or our plants, they’ve also stolen our heritage,” a pastoralist angrily told the BBC, expressing her dismay at the social and environmental crisis the poaching has caused.
Most of the plants in question are a species known as succulents, named for their ability to retain water and survive in dry climates.
Many of the world’s succulent plant species are only found in the Succulent Karoo Desert, which straddles South Africa and Namibia.
Succulents vary in size, shape and color – some look like small multi-colored buds and some resemble cacti, which sprout colorful flowers at certain times of the year.
Although these varieties can be grown in nurseries, global demand also drives the poaching of these plants from the wild, which are then smuggled and sold online to buyers in the US, Europe and East Asia.
In Kamieskroon, a small town in the center of South Africa’s Namaqualand region, the rolling hills have become a haven for poachers.
Some species are highly localized and thus can be wiped out by just a small amount of poaching.
“In South Africa we already know of seven species that have been completely exterminated and there are certainly more species that will become extinct very soon,” says Pieter van Wyk, nursery curator at the /Ai /Ais-Richtersveld Transfrontier Park.
It is difficult to obtain figures on how many plants are being poached, but the non-governmental organization Traffic reports that 1.6 million illegally harvested succulents have been seized by South African law enforcement agencies between 2019 and 2024. This only concerns the contraband that has been discovered. so the actual figure is probably much higher.
The South African government is well aware of the problem and has unveiled a strategy to combat poaching in 2022. It involves carrying out community programs on the need to protect the environment.
Namaqualand has a rich diversity of succulents, with an estimated 3,500 species. [Getty Images]
Plant poaching has exploded since the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown, according to Mr Van Wyk and other conservationists.
Since international traders could not travel to South Africa at the time, they turned to locals to collect succulents for them and send them out of the country.
Mr Van Wyk said this coincided with an increase in global demand.
“People had more time to find something to do, and plants were one of the few things in your home that could connect you to the outside world.”
This has been seized upon by organized crime syndicates who hire teams of plant poachers and then market the wild plants on social media and e-commerce platforms.
“The syndicates saw this as an opportunity to make something viral… and tell the widest audience possible, ‘We have this super strange-looking thing coming from the African continent,’” Van Wyk says.
“Then the public just loses their heads and says, ‘I want to buy one,’ and [the syndicates] causing the species to be poached,” he adds.
The increase in organized crime in the region has knock-on effects on local communities.
“This is a low-income area, people here are not wealthy and people will take advantage of income opportunities,” explains Malinda Gardiner from Conservation South Africa.
The livestock farmer the BBC spoke to says she has a similar view, saying money always flows into her community when poaching occurs.
“When we see young men moving in the mountain areas, we know they are poachers,” added the farmer, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
“They use screwdrivers to uproot the succulents and they carry backpacks and bags to store the stolen plants.”
Conservationists say wild succulents should not be bought online [Thuthuka Zondi / BBC]
A few days later there is an outbreak of binge drinking and illegal activities.
“When they get the money there are more drugs, more alcohol, children are neglected because mum is drunk, dad is drunk and there is no food,” Ms Gardiner added.
She fears the tensions will have longer-term consequences.
“Small communities here really need each other… but this brings distrust. It also creates division within the communities,” she says.
Mr Van Wyk’s assessment is grimmer: “People are abused and enslaved by syndicates and buyers.”
Efforts are being made to make buyers aware of the importance of understanding where a plant may have come from.
China has become a major source of demand for wild succulents in recent years, but an Internet campaign there to educate people about the illegal succulent trade has yielded some results.
The Clean Internet for Conophytum campaign was launched in March 2023 by the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation.
According to the foundation’s deputy secretary-general, Linda Wong, they have seen an 80% decline in online advertisements for conophytum – a type of succulent plant – with an unknown source, and buyers are starting to ask questions about where plants sold online come from come. .
“The key is awareness. Once people know, they want to take action. They want to take responsibility for consuming those plants and enjoying their beauty in a very responsible way,” she told the BBC.
Conservationists around the world are advising customers to ask about a plant’s origins, and under no circumstances should they buy plants advertised as wild.
Traffic and UK-based Kew Gardens recently announced they are working with eBay to develop new ways to prevent the sale of wild succulents on its platform.
In South Africa, Mr Van Wyk says more must be done to promote the cultivation of succulents that can be grown and harvested legally, to reduce the demand for poaching.
“We as a country need to say, ‘We have this resource, and there are other countries that are benefiting enormously from it, why not us?'” he told the BBC.
Mr Van Wyk now runs a nursery in the /Ai /Ais-Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, caring for plants seized by police, and he says they have received more than 200,000 so far.
“Of course it’s stressful to see things disappear. But when you study these plants it brings so much joy and pleasure and you just forget about all the nonsense that’s happening in the world,” says Van Wyk.
More BBC stories about South Africa:
[Getty Images/BBC]
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