[MPWG] Journal ARTICLE: Crimes Against Nature-Eager for quick profits, poachers target some of North America's rarest and most iconic wild plants — and disrupt the ecosystems that depend on them.

[De Angelis, Patricia]

This may be of interest. Saguaro is pictured below but black cohosh and Appalachian and Ozarks medicinal plants are mentioned in first paragraph.

By Lynne Warren
Dec. 1, 2019
in National Wildlife Federation


IT CAN TAKE DECADES for a saguaro cactus to grow large enough to be worth stealing, but just minutes for a team of thieves to rip one from its desert soil. Few of us might associate the crime of poaching with something as undramatic as shallow holes in the ground. But that’s what poachers are leaving behind from coast to coast—wherever lucrative markets turn native plants into profitable prey.

Every year, thousands of illegally trafficked plants are seized by officials in the United States, and according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development<https://unctad.org/en/pages/PressRelease.aspx?OriginalVersionID=340>, the number of plants stolen from the wild to be sold as collectibles, decorations or medicine is growing worldwide. Cacti<https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Plants-and-Fungi/Cacti> are a prime example: Globally, nearly a third of all cactus species are at risk of extinction—and almost half of those are threatened by black-market trade.
Full story: https://www.nwf.org/Home/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2020/Dec-Jan/Conservation/Plant-Poaching
[https://www.nwf.org/-/media/NEW-WEBSITE/Shared-Folder/Magazines/2020/Dec-Jan/plant-poaching-1200x628.ashx]<https://www.nwf.org/Home/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2020/Dec-Jan/Conservation/Plant-Poaching>
Crimes Against Nature - National Wildlife Federation<https://www.nwf.org/Home/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2020/Dec-Jan/Conservation/Plant-Poaching>
Breaking into the drug market . Inland from flytrap habitat, plant thieves train their sights on different quarry, exploiting valuable medicinal herbs growing in the mountain forests of Appalachia and in woodlands from the Great Lakes to the Ozarks. One such plant, black cohosh, is a slow-growing perennial that azure butterfly mothers rely on to feed and shelter their young.
www.nwf.org

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