James Wong: A bright January afternoon in 2014, the sunlight slants through
James Wong: the panels of the Princess of Wales Conservatory in the
James Wong: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Where even in the dead of
James Wong: winter, preparations are underway for the Annual Orchid Festival. 10
James Wong: climate controlled zones display a magnificent array of rare and
James Wong: remarkable plants from across the planet. As the staff busy
James Wong: themselves readying for the big event an apprentice is doing
James Wong: the rounds, checking the water levels in the ponds. Somewhere
James Wong: near the concrete bridge, he stops in his tracks, all
James Wong: around him is the hubbub of visitors and busy staff.
James Wong: But his focus is chained on one thing, a small
James Wong: hole in the abundant flora, the scraper fingers, almost visible
James Wong: in the mud. Holding his breath he leans in, but
James Wong: he already knows what's missing.
Speaker 2: When you find that someone has acted illegally, unlawfully and
Speaker 2: selfishly in stealing one element of that collection, particularly something
Speaker 2: as valuable as this plant, it's very disappointing.
James Wong: Missing from the mud was one of 24 specimens of
James Wong: Nymphaea thermarum, one of the world's most endangered species. The
James Wong: world's smallest and rarest waterlily. Its delicate white flowers are
James Wong: now extinct in the wild. And Kew is one of
James Wong: the few botanic gardens in the world to be guardian
James Wong: of this species, which had once lived in Rwandan hot springs.
Carly Cowell: The high price of these individual plants and the rarer
Carly Cowell: they are, although there's a risk of being caught, there's
Carly Cowell: very little prosecution and jail time. And the fines are
Carly Cowell: minuscule compared to the prices that these items are actually
Carly Cowell: sold at the end.
James Wong: I'm James Wong and I'm a botanist. In this series
James Wong: I'm unraveling the secrets of the world of plants and fungi,
James Wong: from one tiny waterlily to the pre- historic giants hidden
James Wong: in multi- million pound mansions. We'll find out about the criminal
James Wong: underworld that threatens to devastate entire species and the future of
James Wong: our planet.
Speaker 4: Wildlife trafficking has surged in recent years, generating billions in
Speaker 4: illicit profits. Criminals are helping themselves to the environment's precious resources
Speaker 4: without a care for the cost to our planet.
Speaker 2: The scale of the internet is a real challenge for the
Speaker 2: monitoring and surveillance of wildlife crime. It's still important to
Speaker 2: involve human judgment in these decisions.
James Wong: You're listening to Unearthed: Mysteries from an unseen world, from
James Wong: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Kew's tropical nursery is a huge
James Wong: partitioned glass house split into 21 different climatic zones. It's
James Wong: home to 10,000 plants, and it's the most diverse collection
James Wong: of cultivated plants on the planet. This is where a
James Wong: talented team, tends plants behind the scenes and where many
James Wong: waterlilies begin their Kew journey. It's from this oasis of
James Wong: life that the specimens visitors see in the gardens are
James Wong: often born. It was here that the ideal conditions for Nymphaea
James Wong: thermarum were decoded by Kew's botanical horticulturist, Carlos Magdalena. Known
James Wong: to some as the plant Messiah, due to his ability
James Wong: to coax plants back from the brink of extinction. Fast
James Wong: forward a few years and some of the rare waterlilies
James Wong: now extinct in the wild, run show at the Princess
James Wong: of Wales Conservatory. Richard Barley is Director of Horticulture Learning
James Wong: and Operations at Kew. He arrived in 2013 and it
James Wong: was not long after this, that the waterlily theft took place.
Speaker 5: The story of the Rwandan waterlily is a really interesting
Speaker 5: one. It only grew in the natural habitat at one
Speaker 5: location in Rwanda on the edge of a thermal spring.
Speaker 5: Just in the sort of moist mud with a thin
Speaker 5: film of water. They send some seed across here to
Speaker 5: Kew. And I think that was in about 2008, 2009. And
Speaker 5: that's when one of our own horticulturist here, Carlos Magdalena
Speaker 5: did a number of trials with the seed that it
Speaker 5: germinated, it grew, it stayed alive. And then we were able
Speaker 5: to multiply the numbers of plants and ultimately finish up
Speaker 5: with a really good collection. So at least we'd preserve
Speaker 5: the material and the plant, which was by then extinct
Speaker 5: in the wild. It had disappeared, I think in about
Speaker 5: 2008, but we still then had saved the plant from
Speaker 5: becoming extinct altogether.
James Wong: It really is so distinct, as soon as you look
James Wong: at it. It's like, honey, I shrunk the kids kind
James Wong: of got the Ray gun and aim that at a waterlily.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
James Wong: And it doesn't grow with its parts floating on the
James Wong: surface of water. It just grows in mud.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right.
James Wong: What's it like when you've spent years, maybe even decades
James Wong: in some situations trying to conserve a particular species and
James Wong: then notice that, that has been stolen.
Speaker 5: Look, its always disappointing. I mean, I'm sure it'd be
Speaker 5: the same with anyone working with any valuable collection of
Speaker 5: anything at all. When you find that someone has acted
Speaker 5: illegally unlawfully and selfishly in stealing one element of that
Speaker 5: collection, particularly something as valuable as this plant.
James Wong: Were you surprised when you found out it was missing?
Speaker 5: Yes, I was. Honestly, I think any plant theft surprises
Speaker 5: me because I inherently always think the best of people at
Speaker 5: large and don't expect something like that to happen. And
Speaker 5: also frankly, I was surprised because it was not right
Speaker 5: next to a pathway. You could just be walking along,
Speaker 5: bend down and scoop it up. It did require someone
Speaker 5: to traverse some fairly soft going and to get to
Speaker 5: the edge of a pond and get it and get
Speaker 5: it out and not be noticed doing that. These conservatories
Speaker 5: are not left empty during the day. They have people
Speaker 5: in them. As I said earlier, we need to tell
Speaker 5: the stories of why those plants are rare, because ultimately
Speaker 5: we want all our visitors and the wider community to
Speaker 5: understand the importance of looking after biodiversity around the world.
Speaker 5: We want them to know what the issues are. And
Speaker 5: if that means they make some sensible decisions about anything
Speaker 5: in their lives, then that's been a very positive outcome.
James Wong: This story is far from lighthearted or eccentric. In reality,
James Wong: a multi- million pound trade in plant trafficking is seeing
James Wong: rare species ripped from their natural habitats. Mules, employed to
James Wong: break the law and species smuggled without regard to consequences
James Wong: for disease, sustainability and life on earth. So the question
James Wong: is who would steal an endangered plant? I met up
James Wong: with Carley Cowell. Carley is Kew Senior Science Policy advisor
James Wong: for the CITES team. You might want to remember that
James Wong: acronym CITES, because you're going to hear a bit more
James Wong: of it. CITES is the Convention on International Trade in
James Wong: Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna. Bit of a
James Wong: mouthful, so you can see why they needed a snappier title.
Carly Cowell: South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot. One of the smallest
Carly Cowell: plant kingdoms in the world, being only in a single
Carly Cowell: country, whereas there's other plant kingdoms that span continents, and
Carly Cowell: this just leads to that element of being rare and
Carly Cowell: having a high status. And when I was living and
Carly Cowell: working there, my role was to go and to search
Carly Cowell: for these rare plants and to locate them, check their
Carly Cowell: population, see that they were surviving in the wild and that they were
Carly Cowell: healthy. And there were no threats to them. The conservation, the
Carly Cowell: basic form of conservation. What we did find unfortunately, was
Carly Cowell: that there was the dark side of things where people
Carly Cowell: wanted to then collect these rare plants and sell them
Carly Cowell: for their rarity. We would often find that we'd go
Carly Cowell: to a population, count the numbers, and then return to
Carly Cowell: go back and see if they'd set seed or some.
Carly Cowell: And they were gone. They'd been collected, ripped out the
Carly Cowell: ground. There were just holes left. Taken to garden centers
Carly Cowell: or collectors in South Africa, but a lot for export
Carly Cowell: to the states, Europe and Singapore. We were aware of
Carly Cowell: an individual who'd come through from Eastern Europe and was
Carly Cowell: traveling in South Africa, had been known to collect reptiles
Carly Cowell: illegally, and we were tracking him. And the news came
Carly Cowell: that he had entered a national park and that he
Carly Cowell: was in the vicinity and we tracked him down and
Carly Cowell: got to his guest house. We searched and in his
Carly Cowell: bathroom, we found over 2000 succulent plant species. We found
Carly Cowell: reptiles, snakes and lizards, but plants. An entire bathroom with
Carly Cowell: 2000 meticulously labeled and packaged. It was just unbelievable, but
Carly Cowell: it was gut wrenching at the same time, because he
Carly Cowell: was not a botanist and a conservationist. If you collect
Carly Cowell: something as a botanist, you take the locality, you know
Carly Cowell: where it came from, because you'd like to go back
Carly Cowell: and see if the rest of the population, because you wouldn't take
Carly Cowell: an entire population was still thriving. These plants were just taken.
James Wong: Carly is often found in Kew's Jodrell laboratory, working with
James Wong: teams in the wood anatomy lab and the taxonomist as
James Wong: well. She's also regularly based in Kew's millennium seed bank
James Wong: at Wakehurst and works closely with government departments. She is
James Wong: passionate that we can change our attitude to what's green
James Wong: and unseen.
Carly Cowell: I think growing up in South Africa and seeing the
Carly Cowell: species in the wild ray and common plants and just
Carly Cowell: ecosystems functioning on a more natural level, I want others
Carly Cowell: to experience that. I want it to remain as it
Carly Cowell: is. My belief is that we are custodians for the
Carly Cowell: earth. We are to look after it and guard it
Carly Cowell: and let it function as it is meant to be. It's
Carly Cowell: not for us to plunder and pillage and use for
Carly Cowell: our own personal gain, come what may for nature. That's
Carly Cowell: my driving factor. I want to be a custodian. I
Carly Cowell: want to protect the earth and I want generations to
Carly Cowell: come to experience what I've experienced.
James Wong: So one of the things that I find really intriguing is how do these plants smuggling
James Wong: networks operate? Like how do they operate on the ground?
Carly Cowell: From my past experience of working in conservation and particularly
Carly Cowell: protected areas, they function the same way as any illegal
Carly Cowell: crime syndicates would function. You've got the kingpins at the
Carly Cowell: top with lots of money, supplying a demand for something
Carly Cowell: rare and highly valuable. And it filters down to those
Carly Cowell: who are actually on the ground doing poaching, are often
Carly Cowell: the poor poverty- stricken people who are desperate, who don't
Carly Cowell: have other options in society. And don't have a fallback
Carly Cowell: from government for funding. So they are the ones actually
Carly Cowell: putting their lives on the line and going out and
Carly Cowell: doing the poaching.
James Wong: It's quite difficult. It's a network of organized crime, that's
James Wong: really analogous to things like the trade in drugs, for
James Wong: example. And it can be almost impossible for non- geeks
James Wong: to think about plants as being that valuable.
Carly Cowell: The ones we're talking about are newly discovered species, species
Carly Cowell: on the brink of extinction, where there's only a handful.
Carly Cowell: And what I mean by a handful, I mean like literally five. As
Carly Cowell: in five fingers, that's left. So they become sought after,
Carly Cowell: a bragging right for these collectors that have them. I've
Carly Cowell: got one of the last remaining 15 plants. So they
Carly Cowell: put this value on them that is just exorbitant and
Carly Cowell: is unrealistic. When you think of the fact that you
Carly Cowell: could mass produce them like the ones in the garden
Carly Cowell: center and everyone could have, but then you wouldn't have
Carly Cowell: that status of owning that rare plant. It's soul destroying
Carly Cowell: at a level. You feel you've failed them in the
Carly Cowell: wild. There's a term known as plant blindness, which is
Carly Cowell: prevalent across the world through all societies. As humans, we've
Carly Cowell: evolved from being chased by things that could eat us.
Carly Cowell: So we needed to actually see them coming first, rather
Carly Cowell: than the green plants, which weren't so much of a
Carly Cowell: threat. So we phase out the green into the background
Carly Cowell: and we look for things that are moving or bright
Carly Cowell: colors or hairy. So we're blind to plants. They're just
Carly Cowell: there. They always have been and they always will be.
James Wong: These are organized criminal networks, and that can have a
James Wong: very human cost when plants may be worth millions of
James Wong: pounds. The consequences to conservationists on the ground, trying to
James Wong: protect both can be illness. Like I understand you have
James Wong: experience of this in national parks in Mozambique.
Carly Cowell: Yes, I personally wasn't there, but I had colleagues that
Carly Cowell: we work closely with on the Kruger National Park, Mozambique
Carly Cowell: border. The rangers protecting very rare cycads that grow in
Carly Cowell: Mozambique and across the border in South Africa, were being
Carly Cowell: poached. And they were being shot at, and people lost
Carly Cowell: their lives because of protecting rare plants.
James Wong: So apart from orchids and cacti, cycads are this other
James Wong: group of plants where there's a massive business.
Carly Cowell: Yes. So cycads hold the dubious title of being some
Carly Cowell: of the oldest plants in the world. They're known as
Carly Cowell: living fossils. And they were around during the Jurassic period
Carly Cowell: with the dinosaurs. They probably covered the entire earth, but
Carly Cowell: now they're just stuck in a few pockets, clinging onto
Carly Cowell: the edge of survival. They're highly sought after. They're extremely
Carly Cowell: old and the older the cycad and the fewer they
Carly Cowell: are of its kind, the price is then a lot
Carly Cowell: higher. And we're talking hundreds of thousands of pounds to
Carly Cowell: millions, depending on the species, its rarity and its age.
Carly Cowell: The high price of these individual plants and the older they
Carly Cowell: are and the rarer they are, although, there's a risk
Carly Cowell: of being caught, there's very little prosecution and jail time.
Carly Cowell: And the fines are minuscule compared to the prices that
Carly Cowell: these items are actually sold at the end. The people
Carly Cowell: who know the plants and love them and have studied
Carly Cowell: them, don't get paid very well for it. It's not
Carly Cowell: a high profile, highly paid job. So they do sometimes
Carly Cowell: turn to the illegal trade where they can then use
Carly Cowell: their skills and expertise to sell these plants on to
Carly Cowell: those collectors who will pay thousands or millions for them.
James Wong: Thanks for listening to Unearthed. I'll be back again in
James Wong: just a minute, but first here's a message from our
James Wong: supporter, Kim Katra.
Speaker 7: As a charity, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew is facing
Speaker 7: a severe funding crisis right now. The impact of coronavirus
Speaker 7: has created a financial shortfall of 15 million pounds. This
Speaker 7: money is vital for the upkeep of these beautiful botanic
Speaker 7: gardens and crucial to continuing its global conservation work. Plants
Speaker 7: and fungi hold many of the answers to the world's
Speaker 7: biggest challenges such as climate change, food security and biodiversity
Speaker 7: loss. And Kew needs to play a role in furthering
Speaker 7: the science and identifying desperately needed solutions. If there's one
Speaker 7: positive thing that could come out of this pandemic, it
Speaker 7: will be to encourage each and every one of us
Speaker 7: to look afresh and with urgency at these global challenges.
Speaker 7: If you are enjoying this podcast and feel inspired by
Speaker 7: the work that Kew does, please go to kew.org to
Speaker 7: donate today. To help not only protect Kew, but also
Speaker 7: preserve the future of our planet.
James Wong: Accidental crime can happen when people aren't used to thinking
James Wong: about the global impact of small actions, but what about
James Wong: the more conscious and perhaps more sinister trade. A global
James Wong: illegal plant trade doesn't respect the natural population, habitat or
James Wong: biodiversity of a species. I spoke to Guy Clark at
James Wong: the UK Border Force at Heathrow airport.
Guy Clark: I've been doing this work for approximately 25 years. And
Guy Clark: before that I ran a drugs anti- smuggling team at
Guy Clark: Heathrow for 10 years before that. So my whole career
Guy Clark: is mainly airport based with a few visits to the
Guy Clark: UK ports thrown in. Some of the more unusual items
Guy Clark: we've seized. We've had tins of soup made from sea
Guy Clark: turtles and the sea turtle is listed on appendix one
Guy Clark: of CITES. So there's no commercial trade. We've had motor
Guy Clark: vehicles made here in the UK that have been exported
Guy Clark: abroad and all the leather inside was crocodile skin. And
Guy Clark: they didn't have any of the right CITES permits because
Guy Clark: all crocodiles and alligators are controlled. So not only your
Guy Clark: expensive handbags, but any skin items and-
James Wong: But just the idea of not knowing where to look. If someone
James Wong: was exporting a car, I just would never, ever have
James Wong: imagined that UK Border Force would need to look at it.
Guy Clark: Now, what varies in the detection side of things is
Guy Clark: not just the illegal wildlife trade. It's drugs, its illegal
Guy Clark: migrants, it's conflict diamonds. So we have a wide range
Guy Clark: of duties, but we do have a number of the
Guy Clark: more unusual tasks allocated to us, dealing with the restricted
Guy Clark: parts and animals, is one of those where the large numbers
Guy Clark: of species controlled under the CITES convention. Now there's about 28,
Guy Clark: 000 plants and trees controlled under the CITES convention and round about 7,
Guy Clark: 000 animals. We know where our high risk countries of
Guy Clark: origin are. We know where high risk plant and timber
Guy Clark: species come from. So we can narrow down our controls
Guy Clark: and focus and deploy to those flights or those ships
Guy Clark: that bring in containers or flights that bring in air
Guy Clark: cargo and mail for the high risk countries. So for
Guy Clark: plants where we're talking about Southeast Asia, India, sometimes the
Guy Clark: United States. So we can focus in on those areas
Guy Clark: that we know are high risk. And with our intelligence
Guy Clark: exchanges, that helps make our job a bit easier. It
Guy Clark: is difficult.
James Wong: So how does the Border Force work with Kew?
Guy Clark: We rely on the botanists at Kew to identify the
Guy Clark: species, particularly orchids. Now, there's a large number of orchid
Guy Clark: species from Southeast Asia that have the highest levels of
Guy Clark: protection under CITES. So there should be no commercial trade
Guy Clark: in these species. When we see a plant, it's probably
Guy Clark: going to have no indication of what the species is.
Guy Clark: It'll just be wrapped up in newspaper. So we have
Guy Clark: had occasions where it's taken two or three months before
Guy Clark: the plant has actually flowered before the botanists are able
Guy Clark: to determine the exact species. We have had a commercial
Guy Clark: importer who was smuggling appendix one, orchids in his suitcases
Guy Clark: through terminal three. And he got a custodial sentence for
Guy Clark: three months in prison on each of the charges, when
Guy Clark: the botanists at Kew or Peter Gasson, the wood anatomist.
Guy Clark: Now they will do their examinations and should a case
Guy Clark: go to court and the orchid case that I referred to earlier.
Guy Clark: It was the first time an impact statement had been
Guy Clark: prepared by a scientific institution in a UK court. The
Guy Clark: impact statement is now used in all wildlife cases, both
Guy Clark: here in the UK now and abroad. And that actually
Guy Clark: provides the court with information about the damage the smugglers
Guy Clark: are causing by taking the plants from the wild in
Guy Clark: their range states. If you're going to buy plants, it's
Guy Clark: much better to buy plants from nurseries, approved nurseries that
Guy Clark: have got a chain of documentation to show where their
Guy Clark: products originated rather than digging plants up in the wild.
Guy Clark: Not only do you damage the environment there, but you
Guy Clark: risk bringing disease and other pests into the UK when
Guy Clark: you smuggle them through. And no one really wants that.
James Wong: The global wood industry has seen a boom. This in
James Wong: demand oil found in fragrances and cosmetics can be purchased
James Wong: for a small fortune on the high street. It's created
James Wong: from the wood chips or shavings of Agarwood, a resonance
James Wong: timber found at the hardwood of Aquilaria Chis native to
James Wong: Southeast Asia. When trees are infected by a certain mold,
James Wong: it turns the wood dark and the tree then creates
James Wong: a strongly centered resin to protect itself. Tips from these
James Wong: infected hardwoods are used to create the purist extract, but
James Wong: the leftover shavings can be used to make a lower
James Wong: quality, less intense oil too. High value is placed upon
James Wong: wild sources of the soil, but this hasn't been without
James Wong: its problems. And over- harvesting has led to habitat loss
James Wong: and international monitoring of the wood trade. Carly told me more.
Carly Cowell: Many cultures are being spread around the world and the
Carly Cowell: elements of this oil are it's so potent. You only
Carly Cowell: need a few drops in the base of a fragrance
Carly Cowell: for it to last for ages and to be fantastic. It's
Carly Cowell: the best I can describe it. The thing is that
Carly Cowell: to produce this oil, certain trees known as Agarwood trees
Carly Cowell: actually have to be infected by a certain fungus. So
Carly Cowell: they get a wound, a tree loses a branch in
Carly Cowell: a storm and it gets infected. And the infection actually
Carly Cowell: forms this oil, which is then extracted and only 2% of
Carly Cowell: trees that are infected, even produce this oil. So it's
Carly Cowell: very rare and it's just escalated from being very rare
Carly Cowell: in the trees and being harvested to being very potent.
Carly Cowell: And therefore with those two factors that it's a really
Carly Cowell: good oil and it's also rare, the price is astronomical.
Carly Cowell: It's roughly about 1000 pounds for 500 moles of the
Carly Cowell: essence of the oil.
James Wong: Carly and her Kew colleagues are also actively engaged in
James Wong: good old fashioned intelligence work to track and intercept illegal
James Wong: plant trading in other places. I caught up with David
James Wong: Whitehead from Kew's conservation policy team. He's been working on
James Wong: a project called Flora Guard, which sees teams from Kew,
James Wong: the University of Southampton, criminologists and computer scientists, all joining
James Wong: forces to combat wildlife crime on the web.
David Whitehead: It might be natural to assume that wildlife cyber crime
David Whitehead: is taking place in these sort of more secretive parts of
David Whitehead: the internet, the deep web or the dark web. But
David Whitehead: in fact, studies have shown that, that's a rarity. The
David Whitehead: vast majority takes place on the surface web.
James Wong: And this awareness is important, because many people engaging in
James Wong: this trade may have absolutely no idea, both from a
James Wong: buyer and seller side that what they're doing is illegal.
James Wong: So how do you even go about this tracking with
James Wong: your team? Because with the pure number of entries on
James Wong: online search engines, it must be so difficult. You must
James Wong: be talking about literally billions of entries that you'd have
James Wong: to trail through.
David Whitehead: The scale of the internet is a real challenge for
David Whitehead: monitoring and surveillance of wildlife crime. And Flora Guard has
David Whitehead: tried to address this challenge by bringing together sophisticated web
David Whitehead: searching and information extraction tools, which fall under the umbrella
David Whitehead: of artificial intelligence or AI.
James Wong: So you literally have robot police officers, well, not... Yeah,
James Wong: literally, and also figuratively.
David Whitehead: Perhaps to some extent, it's still important to involve human
David Whitehead: judgment in these decisions, particularly with an area as complex
David Whitehead: as wildlife crime. It's very difficult to prove illegality. You
David Whitehead: have to read between the lines slightly. So keeping a
David Whitehead: human in the loop we might say is also important.
David Whitehead: So the Flora Guard methodology combines AI, web searching and
David Whitehead: information extraction tools with human analysis and judgment as well.
David Whitehead: Because there's always a human story at the other end
David Whitehead: behind it. There's a human story behind the poaching. There's a
David Whitehead: human story behind what drives people to collect these plants
David Whitehead: and buy and sell them. And understanding that is important
David Whitehead: as well, to help formulate softer interventions to raise awareness
David Whitehead: or change perceptions or perhaps reduce demand for these species.
James Wong: Our exploration of the secret world of plant crime leaves
James Wong: me more curious than ever as to the psychology of
James Wong: the modern day plant collector. Where poachers and mules may
James Wong: be motivated by hefty or much needed financial rewards, just
James Wong: what is it that drives someone who values a plant
James Wong: so highly to paradoxically risk the future of the species so
James Wong: that they may have it as their own. And the
James Wong: team at Kew are more torn than ever between their
James Wong: passion to share many of these incredible plants with the
James Wong: public and their duty to protect them from theft, damage
James Wong: or even extinction. How can we move forward to create
James Wong: a world where respect for plants extends to an understanding
James Wong: of how individual actions can impact entire ecosystems? Perhaps when
James Wong: we have a culture where the green is more visible
James Wong: and people are educated on the crucial role that plants
James Wong: play, we'll be able to better protect life on earth. So
James Wong: whose place is it to speak for plants?
Carly Cowell: I think it's everyone's. Everyone who interacts with plants should be
Carly Cowell: speaking for them and recognizing them and dismissing the plant
Carly Cowell: blindness and valuing them more. There's support for wildlife crime
Carly Cowell: of animals in mess, but there's no fund for cycads,
Carly Cowell: for developing countries to get these agricultural systems going, that
Carly Cowell: could produce these plants that are highly sought after and
Carly Cowell: being pillaged from the wild.
James Wong: In the meantime, life looks set to get a lot
James Wong: trickier for illegal plant traders. Thanks to the intelligence work,
James Wong: there's fighting to keep plants where they're supposed to be.
James Wong: Next time on Unearthed, from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Speaker 10: She was in possession of the raw material, with evidence
Speaker 10: that it was in the Curry. So if we could put every bit
Speaker 10: of the stage together, enable the police to have a
Speaker 10: pretty solid case.
James Wong: We'll find out how a love spurns murderer was brought
James Wong: to justice, thanks to the plant detectives here at Kew.
James Wong: Make sure you don't miss it by subscribing on your
James Wong: podcast app now. Share this episode with a hashtag Kew
James Wong: Unearthed and follow us at Kew Gardens on social media.
James Wong: I'm James Wong. Thanks for listening.