While South Africa battles rampant tender corruption, criminal syndicates are targeting the country’s prized ornamental plants.
A report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime reveals that South Africa — home to “three globally recognised biodiversity hotspots and exceptionally high levels of endemism” — is facing an “expanding illicit trade” in rare flora. The report, titled Losing Ground: The Growing Illicit Trade in South Africa’s Ornamental Plants, links the surge in trafficking to social media and the Covid-19 lockdowns.
“In South Africa, where the Western and Northern Cape provinces have exceptional levels of biodiversity, the illegal trade largely targets rare, drought-resistant plants that are easy to care for and can survive long periods in transit,” the report reads.
“South Africa’s succulent plants and cycads have long dominated poaching operations, supplying demand mainly within South Africa and in Asian and European markets. What began as a limited, opportunistic trade has since escalated.”
The trade peaked between 2021 and 2022, when lockdowns fuelled a global house plant craze and many unemployed people were recruited as poachers. The result, according to the report, has been “the rapid depletion of certain species, leaving entire landscapes denuded of their endemic flora.”
Recent trends show that “criminal networks are now targeting ornamental plants more broadly”, with geophytes — plants that store energy underground — especially at risk. Among the latest victims is the critically endangered Clivia mirabilis, a drylands-adapted lily first seized by law enforcement in late 2023.
“The ecological consequences of this trade are severe, particularly for the area’s pollinators, with cascading biodiversity loss and limited prospects for environmental restoration. But the social and economic effects are also profound: poaching erodes trust between authorities and communities, and degraded landscapes put ecotourism at risk,” the report warns.
Plant trafficking is a global problem, from cactuses in Mexico to orchids in Southeast Asia, but South Africa has been “particularly affected, given its wealth of rare and unusual plants” concentrated in the Succulent Karoo and the Cape Floristic Kingdom.
“Plants facing particular pressure include dwarf succulent genera such as Conophytum and Euphorbia, caudiciforms such as Dioscorea elephantipes and, most recently, Clivia mirabilis,” the report notes. “About 650 unique South African succulent species are implicated in illicit trade.
“Since 2019, millions of illegally harvested plants have been confiscated,” including 60,397 Conophytum specimens seized from Korean nationals in South Africa and 1,100 Aloe ferox plants seized in the UK, according to the report.
The illegal trade has shifted online over the past decade, with rare species available to international buyers “with a few clicks”. The report says it now operates on two levels: a mass market driven by aesthetics and a specialist market where rarity commands premium prices.
“This challenge occurs in a complex socio-political context where South Africa’s indigenous communities have historically faced exclusion from natural resources,” the report reads.
“Despite mounting pressures, there is limited political will to address plant trafficking in a country grappling with high levels of violent crime and underfunded conservation bodies.”
“Plant blindness” — the tendency to undervalue flora — has also led to “an underestimation of the scale and sophistication of the illegal ornamental plant trade worldwide.”
TimesLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.