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ORCHIDS made their first appearance at the Old Bailey this month. Some
of the world’s most endangered species were paraded before the judge to
illustrate the beauty and rarity of plants that fetch thousands of pounds
on the black market. In sentencing Henry Azadehdel to a year in prison for
smuggling and dealing in endangered orchids, the judge made it clear that
the law intends to protect all endangered species, including plants. ‘The
destruction of rare species is not caused by overenthusiastic collectors
but by cynical and ruthless commercial exploitation and trafficking for
profit,’ he said. ‘If ever a trade wants discouraging, it’s this,’ he added,
a sentiment that will be cheered by conservationists the world over.

Azadehdel was caught red-handed, returning through Heathrow from Ecuador
just before Christmas in 1987. An astute customs officer confiscated his
suitcase full of green shoots and called in the experts to identify them.
The plants were taken to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where botanists
identified them and then held them in a ‘bonded’ greenhouse for Customs
and Excise.

At the time Azadehdel walked through customs at the airport the plants
were easily identifiable as wild specimens. Plants from a glasshouse have
almost unblemished, healthy-looking leaves. Plants torn from the jungle
are usually damaged, with broken roots, chewed leaves and sometimes an encrusting
covering of lichens and mosses.

Azadehdel, too, was a marked man. He had corresponded with botanists
at a number of research institutions for years, gleaning snippets of information
that allowed him to piece together the locations and rarity of many species.
Eventually his questions roused suspicion. Botanists alerted the authorities
and customs officers began to watch his movements.

After the seizure at Heathrow, further hauls at Azadehdel’s glasshouses
at his home in Nottingham produced 348 plants that seemed to contravene
the international laws on trade in endangered species. Three of the species
represented are on the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Top Ten most endangered
plants in the world.

After almost two years collecting evidence, the Crown claimed that Azadehdel
was dealing in large numbers of orchids collected from the wild. ‘With total
disregard for conservation, preservation, countries of origin and the law,
he has raped beauty spots around the world of some of their most precious
assets to feed his obsession with orchids and undoubtedly fatten his bank
account,’ said the prosecution counsel. ‘Some of these species, thanks to
Mr Azadehdel and others like him throughout the world, may now be extinct.’

Orchids are probably the most spectacular flowers on Earth. From one
basic pattern, evolution has sculpted thousands of shapes in every imaginable
colour. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and the World
Wide Fund for Nature estimate that of the 60 000 species of organisms that
will go extinct in the lifetime of a child today, one in ten will be an
orchid. One group, the primitive slipper orchids, is at special risk.

Most slipper orchids are naturally rare because they have very specific
ecological requirements . They are often confined to very small patches,
on a particular type of rock or tree. The golden slipper of Yunnan, Paphiopedilum
armeniacum, for instance, grows on a single limestone mountain in China.
The Rothschild’s slipper, Paphiopedilum rothschildianum, with its regency-striped
awning and long curled moustaches, is confined to a national park on Mount
Kinabalu in Sabah. Slipper orchids, like other orchids, have ingenious methods
of pollination, often depending on a single species of insect. The orchids’
special relationships with particular insects has produced some strange
and extravagant flowers; it also makes them more vulnerable to changes in
their habitat. Like other orchids, slipper orchids also have a special relationship
with a fungus which provides the embryonic plant with the nutrients it needs
to germinate and grow. This relationship can also suffer if the habitat
changes.

At least half of the 70 species of slipper orchid from tropical Asia
are seriously threatened in the wild. In many cases the threat comes from
the destruction of their habitat. Clearance of one small patch of forest
can wipe out an entire population of a specialised species. For some species,
however, the biggest threat is from the trade that flourishes to supply
collectors with a taste for the weird and wonderful. Collectors, prepared
to pay thousands of dollars for a single specimen of a rare orchid, have
encouraged the development of a much larger trade. The irony is that as
dealers strip orchids from the wild, the prices fall and the trade spreads
beyond the rich collector to the enthusiast with a greenhouse. Specimens
that fetched hundreds of dollars 10 years ago now sell for as little as
$5.

Until recently the extent of the trade was obvious from the pages of
advertisements in magazines for the orchid grower. Dealers advertised the
fact that their specimens were ‘jungle-collected’, even though trade in
many of the species was illegal. Now banned from offering such plants, dealers
simply list the species and country of origin – signalling that the specimen
has come from the wild.

The fad for orchids is not new. The fascination began when explorers
brought back the first strange specimens from the tropics. Once a nurseryman
induced one to flower and revealed his secret, the craze took off. Yet it
was an aristocratic hobby. Most collectors were wealthy enough to own conservatories
or orangeries and to rub shoulders with wealthy travellers who could provide
new and exotic specimens. Novelty was the attraction. Any self-respecting
collector wanted a flower that no one else had. This aspect of the trade
has not changed much. The sort of customer has.

Most orchids on sale today are raised in glasshouses. They are either
hybrids, the product of professional or amateur breeding to produce something
different, or pure species raised from seed. This is the legitimate side
of the business and does not threaten wild species. Indeed, most orchid
nurserymen are keen to eliminate the illegal trade. While they spend years
developing better ways of rearing glasshouse specimens, the illegal traders
undercut their prices and damage their business.

Despite successes in rearing some of the rarest species, there is a
tiny proportion of collectors who still want the authentic plant, plucked
from the jungle. As with paintings or porcelain, status comes with the maker’s
mark or signature: with an orchid, the stamp of the jungle comes in the
form of encrusting lichens and partly chewed leaves.

Trade in wild orchids has increased tenfold in the past five years.
Some people doubt that collectors can drive orchids to extinction, pointing
to the scale of destruction through forest clearance in the tropics. But
there is a classic example of how collectors drove a species to the brink.
The lady’s slipper orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, once grew in many places
in the north of England. Victorian gardeners and orchid fanciers collected
large numbers until, by 1945, only one colony survived. Today the single
remaining plant is closely guarded.

The modern trade is uglier. Some collectors simply take a few specimens
for themselves; in the US there are even organised collecting tours. But
dealers like Azadehdel are in another league, where the stakes are high
and the threat to wild orchids correspondingly large. The biggest markets
are Japan and the US, but there is a thriving trade in Europe and Australia
and even in the tropics, in Singapore, Malaysia and Mexico. Japanese collectors
pay the highest prices for the rarest plants.

Almost as soon as a new species is discovered, unscrupulous dealers
seek it out, often quizzing local people and offering a few cents for each
plant. The clever dealers scour the academic journals where botanists publish
their research in an effort to piece together the habits and whereabouts
of a new species. The rewards are so great that some dealers can afford
to mount expensive expeditions worthy of the largest botanical institution.
Once they have found what they are looking for, they may even clear out
every specimen to prevent their competitors from offering the same species.
There are some distressing examples. Paphiopedilum haynaldianum grows in
only three or four places in northern Luzon in the Philippines. On one trip
to study the orchid, John Atwood, of the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in
Sarasota, Florida, found a small population of the plants in a tree. ‘At
five in the evening I left the site, intending to come back a couple of
hours later. By the evening, the plants had gone,’ he said. P. haynaldianum
is a candidate for extinction by collection. ‘Some species seem to be able
to take the pressure,’ said Atwood, ‘but this species has a poor rate of
pollination and is slow to regenerate. What’s more, it is conspicuous from
about 100 metres. It’s difficult to overlook and could easily be wiped out.’

The golden slipper of Yunnan was described in 1982. Since then, thousands
of plants have appeared in nurseries around the world. Plants that fetched
hundreds of dollars in 1986 now cost a fraction of the price. All were collected
from the wild.

Paphiopedilum druryi comes from the Travancore Hills in southern India,
separated from any other slipper orchids by many hundreds of kilometres.
For most of this century, botanists believed the species was extinct. In
1974, however, Verghese Mammen, a collector based in Nairobi, rediscovered
it after years of sleuthing. Mammen published details of his discovery,
with a map to show where he had found it, in the Orchid Digest, an American
magazine for orchid enthusiasts. On the facing page, Mammen advertised P
druryi, at $50 a growth, or three for $110. Armed with his map and description,
other collectors followed his lead. In 1980, botanists working for the Indian
government could find only three plants – which they removed so that they
could propagate more specimens from them.

Even species offered protection in a nature reserve or national park
are not safe. Paphiopedilum rothschildianum, collected from the national
park on Mount Kinabalu, was recently offered for sale in the US for $5000.
And the magnificent P. sanderianum, whose whereabouts in Sarawak was until
recently a closely guarded secret among botanists, was ‘discovered’ by a
group of collectors, who described the rigours of their expedition in the
Orchid Digest. Although the discovery was in a national park, P. sanderianum
has since appeared on the market at enormous prices.

Rare plants are subject to the same legal protection as rare animals.
Most countries now have laws on trade in endangered species. Internationally,
the trade is regulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES). The treaty came into effect in 1975 and almost 100 countries
have ratified it. CITES seems to have helped to stem the trade in endangered
animals but it has not worked so well for plants. The treaty virtually bans
all movement of the most endangered species, those listed in Appendix 1,
if they are collected from the wild. Species listed in Appendix 2 can be
exported, but each plant needs an export permit. The European Community
goes further and demands an import permit too. In each country an organisation,
usually a government department, is responsible for issuing permits and
for checking on the legality of the export and import. In Britain, for example,
the Department of the Environment is responsible.

In many countries where the rarest orchids grow, CITES has failed to
control trade in endangered species. ‘The problem with the convention for
plants is that it is difficult to implement practically, and there is not
always the will to make it work,’ said Sara Oldfield, a former conservation
officer at Kew. Many countries have the machinery in place to carry through
the procedures involved, yet lack the specialised knowledge to identify
the specimens. Where corruption is commonplace, specialist knowledge can
be harmful, providing the confirmation a corrupt official needs to ask a
high price for a plant.

Even without corruption it is all too easy for dealers to acquire the
documents they need to carry on their trade. They can simply claim that
their plants were raised in nurseries or that they are hybrids. Unless CITES
officials have a detailed inventory of who grows what in nurseries, or can
identify a rare species from small green shoots, they stand little chance
of proving otherwise. The trade in propagated plants is massive and legitimate.
It provides a good cover for the illegal trade.

Illegal dealers show remarkable cunning. In countries that forbid the
export of orchids collected from the wild, they simply smuggle them out
of the country and acquire the appropriate documents elsewhere. For instance,
plants from Burma, which has strict controls on exports of orchids, appear
on the market as exports from Hong Kong and Thailand.

The trade operates at several levels. At the bottom are the local people
who collect the plants, earning a few cents per plant, perhaps $5 for a
particularly rare species. These collectors may be hired directly by the
big dealers or they may collect for local middlemen. In the Far East it
is easy to buy wild specimens of rare orchids in local nurseries. Sellers
may recommend that you wrap your purchase in your underwear to prevent detection
at customs but are otherwise unabashed, well aware of the extra value of
jungle-collected orchids. Even in the Far East, however, the law is beginning
to tighten its grip. In April, the Ministry of Agriculture in Hong Kong
seized almost 7000 Chinese slipper orchids destined for sale in West Germany.
The dealer was fined and lost plants worth HK$350 000.

Many conservationists claim that the only way to enforce the terms of
CITES is at the point of import. If plants are refused entry, the market
should dry up. Another way to slow the trade is to destroy the attraction
of rare species. ‘Until you eliminate the greedy ‘I want’ you won’t get
anywhere,’ claims Atwood. ‘You can’t blame local people for collecting plants
when they are starving. They aren’t the villains. The whole system is a
villain. Consumers are villains, vendors are villains. There is a lot of
ignorance along the way.’

The saddest side of this story is that there is no need to drive any
wild orchid to extinction. Almost every one of these species can be propagated
from seed and raised in nurseries. Plants grown in nurseries are usually
healthier and better formed. Plants taken from the wild usually suffer in
the process. Collectors, rarely dealers themselves, tear plants from trees
or cliffs, damaging roots in the process. Stuffed in bags, the plants are
often on the road for many weeks and arrive battered and dehydrated. ‘This
is a shock for the plant,’ said Paul Phillips, of Ratcliffe Nurseries in
Hampshire. ‘Some plants never recover. Those that do often take a long time
to reestablish themselves.’

As nurseries and botanic gardens become better at propagating rare species
from seed, they may be able to flood the market with specimens. Amost everyone
could have a Rothschild’s slipper without doing any damage to the species.
As the price falls, illegal traders should find that it is no longer worth
the risk or effort of tracking down wild plants.