The Illegal Plant Trade

Plants are collected from the wild for a variety of purposes. These can include propagation for commercial sales, use in scientific research, documentation for herbarium vouchers, botanical collections, and safeguarding genetic diversity outside of a plant’s natural range. The number and species of plants collected are documented through the permitting process, and permits are issued in accord with field studies that determine how many plants can be removed from a population without causing adverse ecological effects. Poaching, on the other hand, is motivated by profit. In some cases, entire wild populations of plants are taken without regard to the impact on that species and the organisms that depend on it.

People have always harvested wild plants for various purposes. When plants are harvested in numbers that are sustainable, the population can recover and maintain its stability. The problem with poaching is that plants are often harvested in large numbers without any regard for sustainability. This is especially detrimental for plant species that occur only in small ranges, are slow growing, reproduce slowly, and/or are threatened by other factors such as increasing temperatures, more frequent wildfires, more intense flooding, invasive plant species that compete for resources, invasive pests, and land-use conversion by people.

There are two main reasons why wildlife officials confiscate plants.

As part of routine commerce, plants are shipped from one state to another or across international borders. Generally, these are agricultural plants and ornamental plants for landscaping and homes. Different types of paperwork are required for these shipments. Phytosanitary certificates are official documents confirming that a plant shipment is free of pests and meets the phytosanitary regulations of the destination country or state. The USDA has very stringent phytosanitary regulations to protect our unique and valuable native habitats and agriculture. Individual states may have additional regulations. Sometimes the necessary paperwork for a shipment is missing or improperly completed. In this case the plants can be confiscated. If the paperwork cannot be resolved, officials can refuse the shipment, in which case, the shipment may be returned to the sender, destroyed, or placed with a plant rescue center. These are specially designated facilities that have the capacity and expertise to care for the plants.

Plants may also be confiscated if pests or diseases are present.

Another reason for confiscation is when port authorities suspect that the plants have been poached from the wild and are being smuggled into the country. Plant traffickers sometimes try to import poached plants with paperwork that describes them as species that are legal to ship. With some plants, it is difficult, even for experts, to identify the species. Other times plants are deceptively packaged or labeled. Traffickers sometimes ship plants through intermediate countries that may have less stringent port policies so that they appear legitimate. When confiscated, these plants are also sent to designated plant rescue centers, which include nonprofit botanical gardens, universities/colleges, and other public facilities with the staff and expertise to care for unusual plants. Rescue centers are registered with wildlife agencies and port authorities. Once the rescue centers receive the plants, they are prohibited from selling them, but they are allowed to propagate the confiscated plants and distribute them through sales to the public or donations to other gardens.

Although confiscated plants are usually offered back to the country of origin or the commercial grower who shipped them, these entities often find that it is not cost effective. Shipping them back and then resending them often costs more than the plants are worth. In the case of poached plants, they may not be healthy enough to return or the government may not find it worthwhile. In some instances, however, governments have reclaimed confiscated plants. In 2020, Italian authorities confiscated a shipment of 800-plus critically endangered cacti that had been poached from the wild in Chile. The following year, most of the cacti were returned to Chile thanks to a joint effort by plant experts, police, government agencies, and conservationists. (Some were retained for study at a botanical garden in Italy.)

The first federal law protecting wildlife was the Lacey Act, passed in 1900. The purpose of this legislation was to protect populations of wild birds and game animals by making it illegal to poach the animals in one state and sell them in another.

The first international legislation designed to protect plants and animals was the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Signed into existence on March 3, 1973, it is the only treaty designed to ensure that trade in plants and animals does not threaten the species survival in the wild. CITES was implemented in 1975 with 80 participating nations. Today, more than twice as many countries participate and the agreement protects more than 30,000 species of plants and animals. In the United States, CITES laws are enforced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

CITES mandates permits for the export and import of protected species. But determining which species are protected is the responsibility of agencies and organizations that survey wild populations of plants and animals to determine their size and whether they are stable, increasing, or declining. The largest organization that pursues this work is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Created in 1948, IUCN is the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network with representatives and experts around the world.

When wild populations of a particular species decline steadily, they are classified as near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild, or extinct. A population that is surviving but too small to maintain healthy genetic diversity is defined as functionally extinct. The IUCN Red List includes species that are classified as vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered.

Wild plants grow wherever natural forces allow them to take root. Cultivated plants grow in specific locations because humans planted them there. This is the first step in domestication, a process where people select and reproduce plants with traits that they find desirable. Plant explorers—a term for botanists who venture into wild habitat seeking plants that may be of value agriculturally, medicinally, or ornamentally—have the necessary permits to collect wild plants and bring them into cultivation. The permitting process controls the number of wild plants taken so that it has the least impact on wild populations. Once a plant is grown in human care, it can take some time to determine if it will thrive in domestic conditions and whether it can be propagated easily enough to produce numbers sufficient for commercial use or sale.

When shopping for plants in person or online, you can be an informed buyer. Do a quick internet search for the plant species that interests you. Search for its botanical name plus “conservation status.” For example, “Lithops lesliei conservation status” search results show that it is threatened in its range. Searching for “Dudleya traskiae conservation status” shows that it is endangered. Ask the vendor where they source their plants: Do they propagate the plants themselves? Or do they purchase from a wholesale vendor? Online sales are difficult because it is easier to conceal information. You may also ask to see any relevant paperwork, such as a phytosanitary certificate—an official document that confirms a plant shipment is free of pests and meets the phytosanitary regulations of the destination country or state.

If you see someone at The Huntington poaching plants, call Security at 626-405-2250 or inform a Huntington staff member.

To report poaching in California, you can call the CALTIP hotline at 1-888-334-2258. You can also report poaching by:

• Using the free CALTIP smartphone app
• Submitting a report online at wildlife.ca.gov/Enforcement/CalTIP
• Texting an anonymous tip to 847411 by texting “CALTIP” followed by a space and the message

You can also report wildlife crime to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) by:

• Submitting a law enforcement tip online
• Calling the FWS tip line at 1-844-397-8477

If you suspect you have received illicit goods or believe you know of illicit goods that are being trafficked, you can contact the Homeland Security Investigations’ tip line at 1-866-347-2423.

It can be tricky to determine whether a plant was grown in cultivation or taken from the wild. Because people tend to provide consistent, optimal growing conditions, cultivated plants often look different from their wild counterparts. A group of cultivated plants will have a more consistent appearance—same size, condition, stage of development. Wild-grown plants tend to show signs of age—scars, weathering, inconsistent growth. If someone is selling a very large individual of a very slow-growing species, that may be an indication of a poached plant.

Many plants that are common in cultivation and easy to find in the nursery trade are endangered in the wild. Some are even extinct in the wild. By growing these plants, public gardens and home gardeners are preserving the species. Some common plants in The Huntington landscape that are vanishing in the wild include:

• Golden Barrel Cactus (Echinocactus grusonii)
• Cardboard Palm (Zamia furcrea)
• Engelmann Oak (Quercus engelmannii)
• Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula)
• Baseball Plant (Euphorbia obesa)
• Dragon Tree (Dracena draco)
• Delanat’s Paphiopedilum (Paphiopedilum delenatii)
• Rothschild’s Paphiopedilum (Paphiopedilum rothschildianum)
• Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum)

In Henry E. Huntington’s day, few laws regulated the collection of plants and animals from the wild. The earliest laws protecting wild plants were not implemented until the 1970s. Utilizing Huntington’s railroad line, which ran through prime cactus habitat in Arizona and California, William Hertrich, the first superintendent of grounds, collected many mature cactus and succulent specimens for the gardens. Hertrich also embarked on plant collecting trips to Mexico. Some of the oldest Golden Barrel Cacti in the Desert Garden as well as the seeds that eventually grew into the large Montezuma Cypress trees were acquired during these visits. Many other plants were obtained from local and regional nurseries as well as private collections in Southern California.

Plant rescue centers are botanical gardens, universities/colleges, and other public, nonprofit facilities with the staff and expertise to care for confiscated plants. They are registered with wildlife agencies and port authorities. Rescue centers are prohibited from selling the actual plants they receive, but they are allowed to propagate the confiscated plants and distribute them through public sales or donations to other gardens. Some confiscated plants are rare or difficult to find in nurseries, so their propagation and sale for reasonable prices makes them available to plant collectors and gardeners. This helps reduce the demand for poached plants. Funds raised through plant sales support the gardens’ propagation facilities and conservation programs.

Funds raised through plant sales support The Huntington’s propagation facilities, nursery staff, and conservation programs.

The Plant Rescue Center Program was established to quickly place confiscated live plants with facilities that can care for them. Institutions that participate in this program must be:

• A nonprofit, open to the public, and have the expertise and facilities to care for confiscated exotic plant specimens. A participating institution may be a botanical garden, arboretum, zoological park, research institution, or other qualifying institution.
• Willing to transfer confiscated plants from the port where they were confiscated to their facilities at their own expense.
• Willing to return the plants to the U.S. government if the country of export has requested their return. The U.S. government will then coordinate the plants’ return to the country of export.
• Willing to accept and maintain a plant shipment as a unit until it has received authorization to incorporate the shipment into its permanent collection or transfer a portion of it to another participating institution.