Despite turning his greenhouses into mini jails encased in steel bars and fitted with motion detectors, spotlights and alarm systems, Anton Bouwer still suffered R1m in damage during a burglary at his nursery last week.
The renowned Graaff-Reinet succulent and cacti grower said poachers are decimating SA’s tiny national treasures.
“Those they could not take, they damaged. The plants are valuable because of their rarity, their limited growth areas and the ages they reach,” said Bouwer.
The World Wildlife Fund SA (WWF-SA), botanists, nursery owners and collectors warned that plant poaching has increased in SA since January, with international organised crime syndicates suspected of being involved.
In 2020, two South Koreans were arrested with 60,000 endangered succulents stolen from the Ai-Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park.
WWF-SA’s land programme manager, Jan Coetzee, said in 2020 they recorded three poaching incidents a month, but “now we have three incidents a week”.
Nontsikelelo Mpulo, spokesperson for the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi), which researches, monitors and reports on the state of SA’s biodiversity, said its surveys show a steep increase in the confiscation of poached plant material by authorities.
“Over the past three years confiscated material increased annually by over 250%. By October 2021, 407,244 succulent plants had been confiscated [from poachers].
“With less than 25% of the trade intercepted by authorities, this means over 1.5-million plants have been removed from the wild in the past three years.”
These include rare succulents, with some growing only in specific areas.
Poaching gangs, said experts, can steal more than 5,000 succulents a day.
CapeNature said 28 criminal cases involving succulent poachers are before the Western Cape courts.
Elbie Cloete, CapeNature’s Landscape West conservation operations manager, said poachers have expanded their targets to include hundreds of succulent, aloe and cycad varieties.
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Topping poachers’ lists are cycads and the Conophytum species, dwarf succulents. Some targeted succulents grow only 2mm a year and reach no bigger than the size of an adult’s thumb.
Coetzee said succulent poaching occurs in the “Succulent Karoo Biome”, which stretches across the Northern Cape, Western Cape and Eastern Cape and includes the Richtersveld, Knersvlakte nature reserve and the Klein Karoo.
The Richtersveld is home to 3,000 succulent species, 400 endemic to the area.
Bouwer said because of theft threats, he has had to turn his 250m² of greenhouses into “jails”. “Otherwise all my plants, which are worth millions of rands, would be stolen.”
He said SA’s succulents and cacti are smuggled to US, Europe, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and China.
“These plants are valuable because they are slow growing ... a plant 15cm in diameter can be hundreds of years old.
“Many are on the CITES 1 list, meaning they are either extinct in nature or on the verge of extinction.”
Genevieve Maasdorp, spokesperson for SANParks Northern Cape, under which the Ai-Ais/Richtersveld Park falls, said poachers have “besieged” the province.
Richtersveld botanist Pieter van Wyk said that due to the Environmental Protected Areas Act’s harsh penalties, poachers tend to target private and communal land.
“Most poached plants go to China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Italy and the US,” said Van Wyk.
“The current problem is because of social media. It has caused succulent demand to go viral. Syndicates follow these demands.”
Cloete said poaching is “dramatically” increasing. “In 2019 there were seven cases, 10 in 2020 and 31 in 2021. In 2019, 4,447 plants were poached with over 100,000 poached this year.”
He said the number of arrests is rising, from one poacher caught in 2018 to 98 arrested in 2021.
Cloete said the courts are issuing hefty sentences including prison terms ranging from six months to six years and fines from R100,000 to R2.5m.
“Two suspects have received six-year prison sentences, suspended for five years, and R2.5m fines each.
“SA is losing millions of years’ worth of plant growth to poaching.”
Sandra Viljoen, manager of the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens and The Wilds nature reserve, said six years ago two of their cycads were stolen. “The threat of theft forces us to microchip our cycads. It is so bad we cannot display the plants outside our nurseries. Viewings of our cycads and succulents is by appointment.”
Mpulo said many species are rapidly heading towards extinction.
“The majority of confiscated plants cannot be planted back into nature because of ongoing poaching and difficulty in locating the plant’s exact habitat. Plants that cannot be replanted are sent to designated nurseries to be cared for.”
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