The electronic trade in endemic plants of Cyprus through the Internet

Abstract

This study assesses the current situation regarding the electronic trade of the Cypriot endemic plants. We examine the plant material sold over the Internet, prices and vendors, and we explore to what extent this activity complies with national laws and international treaties. Overall, 48 taxa (34% of the Cypriot endemic flora) are traded by 21 nurseries of Europe and North America, belonging mostly to Lamiaceae, Brassicaceae, Iridaceae, Asparagaceae, Fabaceae and Asteraceae. Seeds are the commonest form of sale; prices range from €0.12 to 0.79 per seed and from €0.31 to 2.56 per gram. The price range for live plants is €5.67-30.22 (highest for Quercus alnifolia). Among the traded taxa, two are designated critically endangered, another two endangered, four vulnerable, 12 are globally rare and threatened and 12 are protected at the international level. None of the nurseries surveyed seem to have been granted a permit by the authorities of Cyprus to harvest and sell its wild flora, at least during the last decade. State authorities should extend the current legislative framework so as to cover all endemic and nationally threatened taxa, monitor their wild populations, engage in routine surveillance of their e-trade and regulate access to the country's genetic resources.

Endemic plants of Crete in electronic trade and wildlife tourism: current patterns and implications for conservation

“…We run this search through two main websites that are linked with a large number of nurseries. These are the Plant Finder application (https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/search-form) of the Royal Horticultural Society webpage, which provides information for plants traded mostly in European nurseries, and the Plant Information Online webpage (https://plantinfo.umn.edu/), which provides data for nurseries in the USA and Canada [16]. All information was checked thoroughly, as described in Krigas et al [15].…”

“…Also, a combined search with all names (accepted and synonyms) was conducted. We recorded the information from all relevant sources included in the first 10 pages (100 results) of the search output [16]. This is the limit we set, after several preliminary searches, which showed that the first 10 pages contain more than 90% of the sources of relevance appearing in the 50 pages searched.…”

“…Despite the importance of e-trade, there are only few assessments of e-traded plants. These concern plants of Greece [15] and Cyprus [16], or they focus on specific plant families like orchids [17]. Data on illegal trafficking of wild flora are also limited [18–26].…”

Studying Illegal Online Trades in Plants: Market Characteristics, Organisational and Behavioural Aspects, and Policing Challenges

“…Hinsley et al (2016) studied the trade of horticultural orchids via social media, using social network analysis to examine the ties between orchidthemed groups online, and finding evidence of trade in wild orchids, especially among English-speaking and Southeast Asian groups. Krigas et al (2017), studying online trade in the endemic plants of Cyprus, found that vulnerable, endangered, and critically endangered taxa (according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, a science-based inventory of the global conservation status of plant and animal species, see IUCN 2018) were also traded without the required CITES permits. Similarly, Vaglica et al (2017) monitored online sales in five genera (including both CITES-listed and non-listed species) of succulent plant species endemic to Madagascar, revealing potential threats to wild populations.…”

“…The studies briefly surveyed to recognise the need to better monitor both online markets and social media (Hinsley et al 2016;Krigas et al 2017), but they do not specifically consider how to translate this need into implementable policies or linger on specific policing aspects. Nonetheless, there is consensus that online trading should become a priority for law enforcement improvement (Kretser et al 2015;Hinsley et al 2017a), and that interventions for capacity-building of enforcement personnel are needed to increase the quality of market surveillance for illegally traded wildlife (Lavorgna et al 2020).…”