Tiny, rare succulents, carefully labelled and packed into plastic pots, fill an undisclosed greenhouse in South Africa. These plants—some resembling green thumb tips, others like rounded stones—have been confiscated from poachers and smugglers who illegally harvested them from the Succulent Karoo biome. Conservationists warn that South Africa is facing an escalating plant poaching crisis that has already led to the functional extinction of at least eight species.
Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash
The Succulent Karoo, stretching from southwestern Namibia into South Africa’s Northern and Western Cape provinces, is home to over 6,400 plant species—2,500 of which exist nowhere else. The region has become a target for transnational smuggling networks, particularly since 2018 when demand for mature plants surged in Asia. By 2024, over 1.16 million illegally harvested plants had been seized, yet authorities struggled to curb the crisis.
‘In 2014-2015, we experienced a big increase in demand from East Asia,’ said Christine Wiese of Kokerboom Nursery. Initially, buyers sought seeds, but later, entire plants were trafficked in large quantities. Organized crime networks quickly adapted, using existing smuggling routes to move the plants internationally.
The pandemic further fueled the crisis as unemployed locals turned to poaching. Annette Hübschle of the Global Risk Governance program at the University of Cape Town noted that “the Northern Cape is like frontier country,” with existing criminal networks facilitating the illegal trade.
While conservationists and law enforcement officers have made efforts to intercept shipments, enforcement remains patchy. Carl Brown, a biodiversity law enforcement officer, noted that as seizures of Conophytum succulents have declined, poachers have now turned to rare geophytes like Clivia mirabilis. Experts fear that without stronger legal protections and international cooperation, South Africa’s unique plant biodiversity will continue to be plundered.
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