South Africa: More Than 2.5-Million Succulents Seized From Poachers

What the report says

Authorities in South Africa’s Western Cape have seized about 2.5 million illegally harvested succulent plants since 2018, according to presentations made this week to the provincial legislature’s standing committee on environmental affairs. CapeNature told lawmakers that the seizure total likely represents less than a quarter of the broader illegal trade, indicating that poaching remains far more extensive than enforcement figures show.

The briefing involved CapeNature, the South African National Biodiversity Institute, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, and TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring group. Their presentations were part of a coordinated response to succulent poaching, which officials said has surged since 2019. Much of the harvesting is linked to the Succulent Karoo, a biodiversity-rich area in the Northern and Western Cape that contains many plant species found nowhere else.

Officials said most plants are taken in the Northern Cape and moved through the Western Cape. During the first half of this year, nearly 376,000 plants were reportedly seized in 26 incidents, mostly in the Western Cape. The article also notes that the plants are sold internationally, including in markets in Asia and Europe, and that poaching is tied to rural poverty, unemployment and organized crime.

CapeNature and TRAFFIC officials urged stronger enforcement, better storage for confiscated plants, and more specialist training for police, prosecutors and magistrates. They also pointed to species losses already under way, saying some Conophytum varieties are extinct in the wild and others are at risk, underscoring the conservation stakes if the trade is not curbed.