[PCA] ARTICLE: Cactus Traffickers are cleaning out the Deserts

[Park, Margaret E]

Rachel Nuwer, Washington Post, May 20, 2021

A recent raid in Italy involving rare Chilean species highlights the growing scale of a black market in the thorny plants.

Almost all of the protected plants had come from Chile, which does not legally export them, and some were well over a century old. The operation — which occurred in February 2020, but is being made public now because of the cactuses’ recent return to Chile — was most likely the biggest international cactus seizure in nearly three decades.<https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p005.pdf> It also highlights how much money traffickers may be earning from the trade.

Full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/20/science/cactus-trafficking-chile.html?smid=em-share&fbclid=IwAR0huJAOL_0Q3dGMdeNvZ0x24QNnsine1UMsNpXgcTqWWsKGp3vCaIJEKfk
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