Plant Poaching

[Klipspringer]

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa ... 4c66275fbd

Two men arrested for dealing in endangered plants
By African News Agency Time of article published 20h ago


By ANA Reporter

Springbok - Two men have been arrested after they were found in possession of an endangered plant species worth about R200 000 in Springbok in the Northern Cape in the early hours of Sunday morning, the South African Police Service (SAPS) in the province said.


The two suspects were arrested in a joint operation consisting of members of the Springbok SAPS stock theft and endangered species unit, the K9 unit, the public order policing (POP) unit, and the Namakwa SAPS crime intelligence unit, SAPS Northern Cape spokesperson Brigadier Mohale Ramatseba said in a statement.

"The two suspects were arrested in connection with dealing in protected plants. The suspects were found in possession of Conophytum pageae plants in Springbok valued at about R200,000. The suspects were arrested this morning, 18 October at about [2am]."

The VW Jetta car in which the two men were driving was confiscated as it was used in the transportation of endangered plants. The suspects were expected to appear in the Springbok Magistrates' Court on Monday. The police investigation was continuing, Ramatseba said.

According to the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) Red List of South African Plants, the Conophytum pageae is the most widespread species from genus Conophytum. It occurs in southern Namibia and the Namaqualand region of South Africa.

Illegal collecting to supply the specialist succulent horticultural trade is a major pressure on the species, which is currently the most highly sought after Conophytum.

Between 5000 and 10,000 specimens have been removed from habitat since March 2019 with rates and volumes of harvesting increasing constantly, according to the Sanbi website.

African News Agency (ANA)

[Lisbeth]

Why don't they leave Nature alone

The rarer they are the more they are worth

[Alf]

Humans will never stop until they have destroyed earth

[Lisbeth]

They are doing their best

[Richprins]

[Lisbeth]

The right medicine for muthi hunters

By Lucas Ledwaba• 11 April 2021


Meurel Baloyi manages the Skukuza Nursery in the Kruger National Park. (Photo: Lucas Ledwaba/Mukurukuru Media)

While rangers fight rhino poachers, SANParks is trying to save medicinal plants from extinction.

As five men arrested for the illegal possession of a protected plant species without a permit were appearing in a Cape Town court recently, about 1,800km away in a nursery in the Kruger National Park workers were busy tending to plants as part of a project to save them from being poached to extinction.

The men were arrested in Durbanville near Cape Town last year and charged for being in possession of wild ginger (Siphonochilus aethiopicus) without a permit.

Wild ginger, xirungulu in Xitsonga, isiphephetho in isiZulu or serokolo in Sotho languages, is listed as an endangered species in the Threatened or Protected Species list in terms of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act 10 of 2004.

A permit is required for the harvesting, possession and trade in the species, which is highly sought by healers for use in treating various ailments and for conducting certain spiritual rites.

The Cape Town men are expected back in court on 17 May – but their case is neither unique nor an isolated one. According to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), approximately 60,000 plant species are harvested mainly for medicinal usage in the world.

“These harvested medicinal plants are not only a major source for traditional medicine but are also used as an important raw material for modern medicine, perfume, cosmetic products, etc.”

Cites also notes that the demand for and trade in these medicinal plants have been increasing and that in 2014 the global reported trade in plants for medicinal purposes alone was valued at more than $3.4-billion.

Critically, the convention warns that many medicinal plant species are threatened with extinction through overharvesting, habitat loss, climate change and illegal international trade.

In the Kruger National Park’s Skukuza Indigenous Nursery, manager Meurel Baloyi and her staff are working on a project that aims to save medicinal plants targeted by poachers.

The South African National Parks (SANParks) Warburgia salutaris conservation programme has seen more than 30,000 medicinal plants donated to traditional healers and communities along the park’s borders in a bid to ensure their sustainability and to minimise the impact of poaching.

On a cool, overcast morning Baloyi and her colleagues carefully tend to the plants lined up neatly on the floors and tables in the nets.


Roots of the wild ginger tree are sought by traditional healers who use them for a number of ailments. (Photo: Lucas Ledwaba/Mukurukuru Media)

Among them are indigenous medicinal plants highly sought after by traders who sell them to healers on the black market. These include the pepper-bark tree (Warburgia salutaris) and wild ginger.

The pepper-bark tree, xibhaha in Xitsonga (which is widely spoken in communities in the southern and central borders of the park), is used for the treatment of colds, respiratory ailments, fever, malaria, coughs and abdominal pain, among many other ailments.

The project, said Baloyi, came about when rangers constantly came back from their field patrols with worrying reports of human harvesting of medicinal trees and plants in the park.

As part of its People and Conservation project, SANParks organised workshops with traditional health practitioners from communities living along the park’s borders to work out a solution. The workshops revealed some interesting facts. “They [the healers] mentioned that they need the plants for medicine. They also told us that they have exhausted the plants outside [the park],” said Baloyi.

Dr Louise Swemmer, an economic and social scientist with SANParks who works on the SANParks Warburgia salutaris conservation programme, said its objectives are to save the species and enable people with opportunities to use the plants for their benefit, and in so doing to create value.

“In most cases, traditional healers buy the medicines that they are not able to harvest in their immediate vicinity from the markets. The harvesters who ‘poach’ are generally from areas away from the [Kruger] park and are harvesting for the commercial market.

“So, we hope to provide enough tissue in the local home gardens [so] that the muthi hunters [gatherers] will not come into the park and risk their lives, but rather buy from the local growers,” explained Swemmer.

According to SANParks, seeds for the programme are harvested from a Warburgia orchard on a farm in KwaZulu-Natal and dried before being transported to the Agricultural Research Council and the South African National Biodiversity Institute in Mpumalanga in trays, where they germinate and grow into small seedlings.

The seedlings are then taken to the Skukuza Indigenous Nursery in trays, after which they are planted out into individual bags.

Once they have grown into saplings, they are distributed widely for planting.

The nursery targets for distribution include, on small scale, SANParks staff, community and school groups at a low intensity and traditional healers on a large scale, with an intensive monitoring programme.

Swemmer explained that the workshops are not the main part of the project but enable SANParks to talk to healers about the plants and to decide together if they would like to be part of the project.

“At the workshops we donate the trees, and then we try to go back and visit the healers from time to time to see how the trees are doing. This is the important part, as it’s how we try to build and maintain relationships,” said Swemmer.

She highlighted the fact that, as the network of healers they engage with grows, it becomes harder to maintain the relationships. Swemmer said so far they have engaged with close to all the healers adjacent to the Kruger National Park, “either directly, 400, or indirectly, about 3,000”.

“Having positive relationships with people living next to the park is of paramount importance for the Kruger Park, and the medicinal plant project is one of the many ways in which we do so,” she said.

Swemmer said the project has had positive conservation spinoffs by not only reducing the pressure on wild populations but also by building positive relationships with traditional healers.

She describes these healers as “a very important group in society”.

She says in so doing they hope to build support for conservation as well.

“But not through teaching people, but rather through learning together in ways that unlock opportunities for people to feel the benefits of conservation in ways that are seen as legitimate and are culturally appropriate to them,” she said.

Baloyi noted that the disturbing reports from rangers have decreased since the project was implemented.

“We have seen a big difference. But we must continue working,” she said.

[Richprins]

Kruger programme aims to nip plant poaching in the bud


Skukuza Nursery in the Kruger National Park (KNP) has up to 276 indigenous species being cultivated. Three of these species, however, receive a lot more attention than the rest, due to poaching.
3 days ago
Linzetta Calitz

The manager of the nursery, Meurel Baloyi, said community members come into the park to harvest, specifically, the pepperbark tree, wild ginger and the Swazi lily. These species all hold medicinal value and traditional healers use them for various purposes.







Wild ginger plants.


A Swazi lily.

Thankfully, with this type of poaching, the park has come up with a sustainable solution.



Together with the People in Conservation department in the KNP, the nursery has initiated a project in which it engages with these healers to establish the plants they use, and to prevent further poaching the community receives a donation of seeds.




Baloyi said workshops are held at which healers are taught how to cultivate more of their own plants. This has resulted in a decline in the number of plants poached in the park.

This project has been running for some time, as the park noticed some of these sought-after trees dying in 2002.



When, for example, the bark of a tree is harvested, the tree will die within two to three years.

Most of these trees found in the wild are too big to be removed, so only certain parts are taken. Rangers monitor these trees and give daily feedback, said Baloyi.

Aside from this community project, the nursery has various other species, including baobabs, impala lilies, jackalberries and many more, all of which are for sale, as the nursery is open to the public.

Once you have purchased a plant, the nursery issues you a permit for you to safely exit the park with the latest indigenous addition to your garden.

https://lowvelder.co.za/724866/kruger-p ... n-the-bud/

[Lisbeth]

Let's hope that the plant poachers do grow their own plants It's much quicker and easier to steal them

[Lisbeth]

B(l)ooming ecological crime ravaging SA exposed after three Saudi Arabians caught stealing 1.6m seeds and flora


The police’s Springbok stock theft and endangered species unit confiscated more than 5,500 conophytum plants in February this year. (Photo: Supplied)

By Caryn Dolley | 26 Nov 2022

The case is yet another matter pointing to a time-sensitive crime crisis ravaging critical ecosystems in South Africa. Prosecuting authorities have warned that criminals targeting plants pose an immense and potentially irreversible problem. Some plants, like succulents, that are stolen and retrieved by police cannot simply be returned to the wild.
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In October, three individuals from Saudi Arabia – a Ministry of Islamic Affairs employee, a financial analyst and a former soldier – touched down in South Africa. Within less than a month, all three were convicts in this country, where they had illegally picked more than 1.63 million seeds and flora items from areas around the west coast. The trio – Bedah Abdulrahman Albedah, Mohand Abulnaser Althenaian and his father Abdulnaser Mohammed Althenaian – were caught and pleaded guilty to related crimes.

Seeds stolen for export

It was suspected that they planned to “export” the seeds to a farm in Saudi Arabia. Instead of this plan proceeding smoothly, the trio arrived in South Africa, became the centre of legal proceedings, were forced to pay a R2-million fine and agreed to leave this country.

They did so as criminals. The action played out against them in South Africa in October, the same month that President Cyril Ramaphosa and several Cabinet ministers visited the convicted trio’s home country, Saudi Arabia.

According to a Presidency statement, during Ramaphosa’s state visit there, “discussions would focus on export market opportunities for South African produce and on South Africa as an investment destination”. This is ironic, given suspicions that the Saudi three wanted to smuggle stolen seeds from South Africa to their home country.

Flora and uncut diamonds

The case involving Albeda and the Althenaian duo is yet another matter pointing to a time-sensitive crime crisis ravaging critical ecosystems in South Africa. Prosecuting authorities have warned that criminals targeting plants pose an immense and potentially irreversible problem. Some plants, like succulents, that are stolen and retrieved by police cannot simply be returned to the wild.

DM168 has previously reported that if it is known where a plant was stolen from, and if conditions are suitable, it can be replanted using special techniques, only if security in that area was ensured.

At the end of October, in another crackdown on plant crimes, West Coast police were tipped off about a Ford Fiesta travelling from the Western Cape town of Clanwilliam with indigenous plants being smuggled in it. The vehicle was stopped in another Western Cape town, Citrusdal, and 3,491 plants were found. Four men were arrested for illegally having the flora.

In August, in another crackdown near Clanwilliam, a vehicle was stopped and searched – plants worth R400,000 plus five uncut diamonds were discovered in an occupant’s luggage. The occupant, who had no permit for the plants, was arrested.

Near extinction

Earlier this year, DM168 reported that plant poachers, including fugitives, repeat offenders and crooks who operate internationally, were probably behind the near extinction of some rare succulent species as they continued stealing hundreds of thousands of them.

Poachers were targeting the Succulent Karoo Biome, which stretches from Lüderitz in Namibia, across South Africa’s west coast and into the Western Cape’s Little Karoo. It is one of only two arid hot spots in the world where several specific plant species are found.

South African National Biodiversity Institute spokesperson Nontsikelelo Mpulo told DM168 in April that, over three years, the amount of material confiscated in such crimes had increased by more than 250%.

“[It] is likely that over 1.5 million plants have been removed from the wild in the past three years,” she said.

“It is very likely that some species have already been poached to extinction in the wild because the number of confiscated poached plants being housed at secure locations for court cases often exceed[s] the previously estimated total wild population size.”

Drastic plant crime spike

Now Advocate Aradhana Heeramun, who prosecuted the Saudi Arabia-linked case, has warned that the crisis has escalated.

“Since the beginning of 2022, there has been a drastic spike [in] these offences,” she said. “The illegal trade in wild flora and fauna is one of the largest illegal activities in the world, along with the illegal drug trade, illegal weapons smuggling and human trafficking. It is essential to recognise that environmental crime, unlike many other forms of crime, is a time-critical issue. As our natural resources are finite, lack of action may have permanent consequences.”

Heeramun previously described the plant poaching crisis as “an ecological tragedy”.

DM168 understands that authorities are pushing for severe legal action to be taken against plant poachers. In the case involving the three individuals from Saudi Arabia, within less than a month after touching down in South Africa, they contributed to the plant crime crisis and were convicted.


(Photos: iStock, Eric / Flickr, Mitchell & Dawn / Flickr)

Trip planned around plant theft

According to information provided by the Western Cape’s National Prosecuting Authority, the trio said they arrived in South Africa on 7 October.

They hired a vehicle at Cape Town International Airport.

“The entire trip was planned with the specific purpose of searching for and acquiring flora,” the prosecuting authority information said. They chose to stay in locations known for flora. The trio later met four others who were set to work with them.

According to the prosecuting authority information: “The purpose of their visit was to export the flora to a farm in Saudi Arabia.

“After spending days acquiring the flora, they departed from the guesthouse where they were booked in.”

Western Cape police spokesperson Warrant Officer Joseph Swartbooi said that after a night in a guesthouse in the Northern Cape, they left and planned to head to Cape Town. But police officers in the Western Cape were tipped off about this.

“They spotted the suspicious vehicle on the N7 highway driving at a high speed near Bitterfontein,” Swartbooi said. Bitterfontein is a village on the west coast.

The car was searched while police officers and CapeNature officials questioned the men, who could all speak English. Witbooi said “a number of bags containing seeds” were confiscated.

Based on information that emerged in legal proceedings, a total of 1,633,386 flora items were seized – this included more than 900,000 plants known as Felicia.


CapeNature ranger Hilton Bocks checks plants in Knersvlakte Nature Reserve in the Western Cape, one of the richest and most diverse succulent regions in the world. (Photo: Ashraf Hendricks)

Guilty as charged

Not even a month after they touched down in South Africa, the three accused entered into a plea and sentencing agreement with the state on 1 November in the Vredendal Regional Court. Albedah and the Althenaian father and son claimed that the flora, which was found concealed in their luggage, belonged to them. This meant that criminal charges relating to flora against the four other individuals, whom they had roped in to work with them, were withdrawn.

The trio from Saudi Arabia pleaded guilty to money laundering, possessing flora without the necessary documentation and contravening a section of Nature Conservation Ordinance No 19 of 1974. They were each sentenced to an effective seven years in jail.

The sentences were suspended for five years on condition that they did not commit the same crimes in that period.

R2m fine for ‘inexcusable conduct’

Abdulnaser Althenaian and Albedah also had to pay R2-million to the Criminal Assets Recovery Account and Western Cape Nature Conservation Board. Of the accused, Heeramun said: “Their conduct is inexcusable. They are all educated individuals who earn a decent living and have families.

“Abdulnaser Mohammed Althenaian (50) served in military defence. His son, Mohand Abulnaser Althenaian (25), is a financial analyst and Bedah Abdulrahman Albedah (40) is employed in the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.” All three convicts undertook to leave South Africa within 48 hours.

There have been other cases that point to the international extent of plant poaching via this country.

Byungsu Kim, a succulent smuggler from South Korea, was previously convicted of related charges in both South Africa and the US. In January, he was sentenced in the US to two years in jail. Prior to that, in April 2020, US citizen Kalman Kaminar, who was linked to a nursery in Los Angeles, was sentenced in Cape Town to two years in jail for illegally having succulents. This sentence was suspended for five years.

‘We must act now’

Earlier this month, Director of Public Prosecutions in the Western Cape Nicolette Bell, reacting to the Saudi-linked case, said her office was trying to tackle the plant poaching crisis. She said the country’s biodiversity had to be protected.

Bell added: “South Africa has a national as well as an international obligation to address wildlife trafficking. This is due to several international multilateral environmental agreements, which oblige South Africa to conserve its natural resources and ensure that international trade in listed wildlife species does not threaten their survival in the wild.

“There is a duty upon all of us to act now to ensure that our environmental integrity is protected.”

Why we should care

• Some plant species have probably already been poached to extinction. In just three years, it is likely that more than 1.5 million plants were removed from the wild and, in a month this year, more than 1.6 million seeds were stolen from the west coast.

• In 2018, the cumulative age of seized poached plants was at least 44,000 years.

• The South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) says plant poaching causes soil disturbance, and this can “destroy delicate organic crusts that characterise the region”.

• Sanbi further says that “losing any species from the environment affects all other species within the ecosystem and leads to ecosystem function deterioration”.

• Certain areas where succulents grow attract tourists and, if these plants become extinct, it will mean fewer tourists.

• This will harm the hospitality industry and lead to job losses.

DM168

[Lisbeth]

The sentences were suspended for five years on condition that they did not commit the same crimes in that period.

That's too easy! Make them pay at least the fine

Probably there is a law that has to be changed, if the situation is as bad as mentioned in the article