Illegal wildlife trade and the persistence of “plant blindness”

Abstract

Societal Impact Statement A wide variety of plant species are threatened by illegal wildlife trade (IWT), and yet plants receive scant attention in IWT policy and research, a matter of pressing global concern. This review examines how “plant blindness” manifests within policy and research on IWT, with serious and detrimental effects for biodiversity conservation. We suggest several key points: (a) perhaps with the exception of the illegal timber market, plants are overlooked in IWT policy and research; (b) there is insufficient attention from funding agencies to the presence and persistence of illegal trade in plants; and (c) these absences are at least in part resultant from plant blindness as codified in governmental laws defining the meaning of “wildlife.” Summary This review investigates the ways in which “plant blindness,” first described by Wandersee and Schussler (1999, p. 82) as “the misguided anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to animals,” intersects with the contemporary boom in research and policy on illegal wildlife trade (IWT). We argue that plants have been largely ignored within this emerging conservation arena, with serious and detrimental effects for biodiversity conservation. With the exception of the illegal trade in timber, we show that plants are absent from much emerging scholarship, and receive scant attention by US and UK funding agencies often driving global efforts to address illegal wildlife trade, despite the high levels of threat many plants face. Our article concludes by discussing current challenges posed by plant blindness in IWT policy and research, but also suggests reasons for cautious optimism in addressing this critical issue for plant conservation.

Synthesis of wild orchid trade and demography provides new insight on conservation strategies

“…Illegal wildlife trade represents an urgent, global priority for conservation (Cooney et al, ). Although illegal trade in large charismatic animals dominates the headlines, there is a parallel, massive illegal trade in wild plants that goes largely unnoticed (Margulies et al., ). This includes thousands of species, especially those valued for their ornamental or medicinal value (e.g., Jenkins, Timoshyna, & Cornthwaite, ).…”

Korean ‘Housewives’ and ‘Hipsters’ Are Not Driving a New Illicit Plant Trade: Complicating Consumer Motivations Behind an Emergent Wildlife Trade in Dudleya farinosa

“…Both law enforcement and popular media articles made a variety of assumptions about the drivers of this emergent illegal trade based on limited data or evidence. These assumptions were further fueled by unverified hypotheses driven in part by stereotypes about what motivates wildlife consumption in East Asia (Margulies et al, 2019a;. In the case of Dudleya farinosa, assumptions focused on their perceived value as rare, exotic, and wild-collected species, with both news reports and some interviewees in the United States making mention of rhino horn or elephant ivory trades as meaningful comparisons.…”

“…There is proportionally limited scientific research on illegal trades in plants compared to animals (Wyatt, 2013;Lavorgna et al, 2018;Margulies et al, 2019a). Within the plant kingdom, research on known existing illicit trades beyond timber is patchy, and limited to only few taxa, such as orchids (Phelps and Webb, 2015;Hinsley et al, 2016Hinsley et al, , 2017de Boer et al, 2017).…”

DENSITIES, PLANT SIZES, AND SPATIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF SIX WILD POPULATIONS OFLOPHOPHORA WILLIAMSII(CACTACEAE) IN TEXAS, U.S.A

“…Another, overlooked avenue of research is investigating the extent of illegal trade in peyote. Few studies investigate illegal wildlife trade in plants, a case of ‘plant blindness’ recently highlighted by [45]. Yet cacti (and orchids) are among the plant groups most threatened with extinction and are clearly impacted by the illegal trade [46,47].…”