[HN Gopher] Demand for ornamental plants is ravaging South Afric...
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Demand for ornamental plants is ravaging South Africa's rare desert
flora
Author : gmays
Score : 60 points
Date : 2022-03-15 20:49 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nationalgeographic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nationalgeographic.com)
| yann63 wrote:
| If you want such plants, buy them in garden centers or in
| dedicated plant fairs, not online to suspicious vendors. Plants
| produced in cultivation (usually by seeds also produced on
| cultivated plants) are more suited to cultivation in our
| greenhouses than those taken in the habitat. For these, the
| survival rate is low, because they often fail to adapt.
|
| If you want to know more about these fascinating small plants,
| here's a website dedicated to them:
| https://www.cactuspro.com/conophytum-lithops/ (disclaimer: I am
| the webmaster of cactuspro.com, but not this specific section of
| the site).
|
| It is in French, made by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. We strongly
| condemn poaching, and of course reproduce as much as possible
| these plants in cultivation to lower pressure on habitat plants
| and share with other aficionados.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Assuming the collectors actually want cultivated plants vs.
| wild ones. I have to imagine to the collector there's a notable
| distinction.
| fowkswe wrote:
| Garden centers and dedicated plant stores in the US are just as
| guilty of bad behavior. The fame Instagram has given to
| succulents has bred a huge demand for cacti which is leading
| proprietors of these operations to raid the desert for all
| kinds of varieties.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/20/to-catch...
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I can guarantee most of them don't know the origins of the
| plants. I've seen so many suspicious looking succulents that
| are almost guaranteed to be picked from the wild.
|
| I've recently started my own home initiative where I
| propagate my own succulents and give them out for free so
| that people can satisfy their succulent mania with little
| harm. I currently own more than 100 types of succulents which
| in the hindsight were probably not sourced correctly.
| hinkley wrote:
| Sourcing plants that are both genetically diverse and provably
| not the result of poaching is quickly rising to the top of my
| list of unsolved problems. One nursery I know of may be both
| (cloning poached plants). Fruit trees have so much trouble with
| pathogens and pests and inclement weather in part because you
| have an entire field full of clones of the same plant. What
| takes out one is going to take them all out.
|
| I may also need to reread the rules on gathering from public
| lands. My memory has condensed down to 'no'.
| [deleted]
| aaron695 wrote:
| fleddr wrote:
| "Conophytum pageae appeal to some collectors because they appear
| to have little lips. Hobbyists sometimes draw tiny faces on the
| plants and post the images to social media, fanning interest in
| China and elsewhere."
|
| What a depressing reason to annihilate a species. Although
| anything to counter this is welcome, it seems a hopeless battle
| to address this from the poacher's end. They just keep coming
| back, forever, and in ever greater numbers.
|
| You need to destroy the market. Block posts/users sharing this on
| social networks. China/Japan should launch national campaigns to
| "unteach" this behavior, and this applies to a very wide array of
| wildlife that is illegal to collect. Apply draconian laws (10
| years in jail) to make a firm statement.
|
| We need to fully reset our attitude on non-domesticated/exotic
| wildlife as collectables or pets. This trade serves nobody and
| destroys wildlife.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Related to this is the threat to peyote (another small succulent
| that takes decades to mature) from overharvesting to provide for
| the international demand of psychedelics.
|
| It's arguably even worse in the case of peyote, as not only is
| the species under threat, but so is the culture of the indigenous
| people for whom it is a sacrament and an integral part of their
| culture.
| post_break wrote:
| Tried to read this but they want my email to continue reading the
| article. Maddening.
| labster wrote:
| I have no problems giving out my email, potus@whitehouse.gov
| m463 wrote:
| I wonder if this will inadvertently preserve some rare species.
|
| Some of those plants are really interesting. I wonder if they
| will clone and spread them widely (via sales)
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I am curious how many undiscovered species might just be
| sitting on someone's hall table.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| The way these things usually work, you inadvertently preserve
| some, and inadvertently eradicate others. Just the nature of
| markets.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| At least they're being preserved.
|
| It's not like they're poaching wild animals that can never
| reproduce.
|
| These plants are being distributed across the globe, preserving
| their genetic line better than a local culture ever could, no?
| woodruffw wrote:
| > These plants are being distributed across the globe,
| preserving their genetic line better than a local culture ever
| could, no?
|
| I don't think it's a matter of "local culture." The plants are
| being removed from the environment they're adapted to; most of
| the ones sold into different climates will probably fail to re-
| adapt and will die.
|
| In that manner, it's more or less the same as live animal
| trafficking.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| >The plants are being removed from the environment they're
| adapted to
|
| Everything I have learned about seeds tells me that plants
| try their damndest to spread their DNA as far and wide as
| possible.
|
| In a sense, flying live plants all across the world is
| exactly what they're hoping/living/existing for.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > Everything I have learned about seeds tells me that
| plants try their damndest to spread their DNA as far and
| wide as possible.
|
| This seems no less true of animals, many of which go so far
| as to _move their entire body_ considerable distances to
| find food, mates, and suitable places to have offspring.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Plants, like every other living thing, specialize for
| environments. Propagation is how they test their
| specialization pressures. That testing tends to happen over
| hundreds of thousands to millions of years.
|
| Shipping mature adult plants around the world to different
| climates is _not_ the same thing as the kind of seasonal,
| glacial changes in specialization that they are adapted
| for.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/64gqt
|
| http://web.archive.org/web/20220315205410/https://www.nation...
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(page generated 2022-03-15 23:00 UTC)