We’re racing against time to save SA’s botanical splendour

There are moments when I am overwhelmed by the sheer, unrepeatable genius of our natural world, particularly in the succulent Karoo. South Africa is a megadiverse country and a botanical wonderland that is home to 7% of the world’s plants.

We have 23,521 unique plant taxa, a staggering 65% of which are endemic, meaning they are found here and nowhere else on Earth. This is our heritage, but also our profound responsibility, and right now, it is slipping through our fingers.

Nearly a quarter of our magnificent flora is facing extinction or is of serious conservation concern. For years, my colleagues and I at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi) have been fighting a determined battle against threats like habitat loss and climate change.

One of our key interventions in this fight is our seed bank, a genetic library of our most vulnerable species. We call the seeds “nature’s time capsules”, because each one holds the potential to grow a brand-new plant, ensuring a species is never truly gone forever.

For 24 years, our partnership with the UK’s Millennium Seed Bank has been the cornerstone of this effort, allowing us to build the skills to meticulously collect and store these precious seeds under precise conditions, dried and frozen at -20°C, where they can remain viable for hundreds of years.

Poaching crisis

But the slow burn of that habitat loss has been joined by a wildfire – we are now also in a desperate, high-stakes race against a new threat: the organised, large-scale poaching of our wild plants.

This is a crisis unfolding in real time. Driven by a booming and often ruthless international market for rare plants, poaching syndicates are leaving our landscapes bare.

The sense of urgency that now defines our work is immense, and as I’ve had to explain too many times, “One day you can go out into the field and there is the plant and then the next day you go, it’s gone.” The speed and scale are devastating.

In November 2021 alone, law enforcement managed to confiscate more than 415,000 poached plants, a number that we know is just a fraction of the total being illegally exported.

Poachers are targeting specific genera like Crassula, Adromischus and Anacampseros, but their primary focus has been on Conophytum species – tiny, jewel-like succulents that are often endemic to a single locality. The species is obliterated from the wild. Forever.

“Conophytum succulents in their native habitat — fragile, endemic and under threat from poaching.

Conophytum succulents in their native habitat — fragile, endemic and under threat from poaching. Source: SANBI

In response, our mission has been supercharged with a new intensity.

Finding answers

Sanbi is an integral part of the national working group established to find solutions to the poaching problem. One of our most critical roles is to ensure that these targeted plants are safely backed up in the seed bank before they disappear.

With dedicated new funding to address this crisis, our teams have been working tirelessly in the field, especially in the Northern Cape. The results of this urgent push are a source of immense pride.

When this crisis began, we had only six Conophytum species in the seed bank. Today, after a concentrated effort, we now hold 81 collections of these vulnerable plants, representing 74 different taxa. It is tangible success in this ongoing race, a testament to the passion and diligence of our team.

This work is a profound act of foresight and an acknowledgement that we are temporary custodians of an ancient natural legacy.

The seed bank is a store of potential, a living archive and the ultimate insurance policy against an empty future.

Saving these seeds is about securing future resources, restoring damaged ecosystems for scientific research and for potential uses in medicine or agriculture that we haven’t yet discovered. It safeguards the genetic resilience of our nation’s flora for generations to come.

Call for volunteers

But this is not a race we can win alone. In a country as vast as ours, our small, dedicated teams rely on a network of passionate citizens.

We have an open call for volunteers to work with us, people who know the land and can guide us to plants, who can help us with the meticulous work of cleaning and processing seeds, or who can simply ensure our collectors are never working alone in the field.

We are also committed to training the next generation of conservationists, from university students to interns, to carry this torch forward.

This is a fight for the very soul of our landscape, a race to save the irreplaceable. With your help, we can win it, ensuring that future generations will not just read about our incredible flora in books, but will be able to see it for themselves. DM

Victoria Wilman is the seed conservation programme manager at the South African National Biodiversity Institute, where she leads the South African Millennium Seed Bank Programme. She is a horticulturist with a BSc Honours in botany.