WEBVTT - Episode 1: Unscrupulous Collection 0:00:08.245 --> 0:00:25.005 School of humans Cha. It's the winter of twenty twenty 0:00:25.525 --> 0:00:29.845 and police in Italy just received a tip. An apartment 0:00:29.925 --> 0:00:33.805 in Senegalia, a small coastal town on the Adriatic, is 0:00:33.805 --> 0:00:39.765 allegedly a stash house inside it one million euros worth 0:00:39.805 --> 0:00:45.045 of stolen goods. Detectives hop on the case. They stalk 0:00:45.045 --> 0:00:48.525 out the apartment and watch us streams of strange packages 0:00:48.605 --> 0:00:54.125 move in and out. Most boxes, they learn are coming 0:00:54.165 --> 0:00:59.725 from Greece and Romania, suspicious considering those countries have relatively 0:00:59.845 --> 0:01:05.765 lax customs inspections. But that's just a red herring. As 0:01:05.805 --> 0:01:09.805 police dig deeper into the case, they discover that this 0:01:09.885 --> 0:01:14.845 flood of boxes isn't originating from Europe at all. The 0:01:14.965 --> 0:01:21.245 packages are being sent from South America. Now this is fishy. 0:01:23.805 --> 0:01:28.445 Officers with the Carabinieri decide they've seen enough. They secure 0:01:28.485 --> 0:01:34.765 a search warrant and prepare a race. On a February day, 0:01:35.125 --> 0:01:41.845 officers swarm the apartment door. They crack it open, step 0:01:41.845 --> 0:01:45.565 into the living space, and are immediately greeted by walls 0:01:45.805 --> 0:01:50.685 bursting with green. There are no illegal guns here, no 0:01:50.845 --> 0:01:56.445 bricks of drugs, no hidden stashes of explosives. Instead, jammed 0:01:56.445 --> 0:02:00.325 against the walls tetrist Amongst scaffolding and stacks of wood 0:02:00.365 --> 0:02:07.805 shelves are hundreds thousands of cacti. The police wandered the 0:02:07.845 --> 0:02:11.885 apartment in amazement, their cacti on the floor, Cacti climbing 0:02:11.925 --> 0:02:15.525 the walls, Cacti under the bed. Cacti cover the counters, 0:02:15.725 --> 0:02:20.765 and swing from every corner of the ceiling. According to 0:02:20.805 --> 0:02:24.365 Sabado magazine, this is more than a mere stash house. 0:02:24.885 --> 0:02:28.805 This is a nursery, a botanical wonder lamb stuffed with 0:02:28.925 --> 0:02:34.365 more than one thousand specimens of illicit Copiapoa cacti. The 0:02:34.485 --> 0:02:38.565 plants resemble stubby spiked thumbs. They're native to the Atacama 0:02:38.645 --> 0:02:41.405 Desert of Chile, where the genus is threatened, with some 0:02:41.485 --> 0:02:47.205 species listed under international protections. But they're relatively large. It 0:02:47.245 --> 0:02:51.805 takes them ages to reach this size. When botanists review 0:02:51.845 --> 0:02:55.765 police evidence, they estimate that some specimens are more than 0:02:55.845 --> 0:03:06.605 two hundred years old, older than modern Italy itself. Police 0:03:06.685 --> 0:03:10.165 arrests the apartment owner, Andrea pam Betty, and soon pieced 0:03:10.165 --> 0:03:14.485 together his story. Pam Betty had stalked the deserts of 0:03:14.565 --> 0:03:18.165 Chile in search of rare cacti. One by one. He 0:03:18.325 --> 0:03:21.005 plucked plants from the sand and sent them home by 0:03:21.045 --> 0:03:24.045 way of Greece a Romania. Then he stowed them in 0:03:24.085 --> 0:03:26.685 his apartment on the Italian coast, where he sold them 0:03:26.885 --> 0:03:30.405 piece by piece for five hundred dollars to fifteen hundred 0:03:30.405 --> 0:03:34.845 dollars a pop. All told, his apartment easily held at 0:03:34.885 --> 0:03:38.565 least one million dollars worth of plants, all ripped from 0:03:38.605 --> 0:03:48.005 the desert illegally. The phrase black market evokes sinister images 0:03:48.565 --> 0:03:53.165 stacks of ak forty sevens, crates of cocaine, caged tigers, 0:03:53.645 --> 0:03:57.165 but potted succulents on a window sill. No one is 0:03:57.205 --> 0:04:01.365 calling crime stoppers for that, And yet the biggest black 0:04:01.405 --> 0:04:04.965 market you've never heard of is blooming right under your nose. 0:04:06.085 --> 0:04:08.765 Whether it's a four thousand pound cactus shoveled from the 0:04:08.805 --> 0:04:12.885 Arizona desert, or delicate orchids pinched from the tangled jungles 0:04:12.885 --> 0:04:16.045 of Peru rare, plants are at the center of a 0:04:16.205 --> 0:04:22.965 rapidly growing and lucrative world of crime. My name is 0:04:23.005 --> 0:04:26.965 Summer rain Oaks, and on this podcast we're plunging straight 0:04:27.005 --> 0:04:31.165 into it, talking to the buyers, the sellers, the obsessives, 0:04:31.485 --> 0:04:34.245 and those who came face to face with the criminals 0:04:34.525 --> 0:04:42.485 behind an underworld few know exist. From School of Humans 0:04:42.525 --> 0:04:59.085 and iHeart podcasts. This is bad Seeds. If there's one 0:04:59.125 --> 0:05:01.405 thing you need to know about me, it's that I 0:05:01.565 --> 0:05:06.845 love plants. I mean a lot up in rural Pennsylvania, 0:05:07.125 --> 0:05:10.405 and there we couldn't live life without them. My parents 0:05:10.405 --> 0:05:13.165 got food from the garden, and during summer break, I'd 0:05:13.165 --> 0:05:17.405 spend hours losing myself in the woods out back. When 0:05:17.485 --> 0:05:19.845 I got older, I learned the scientific names for the 0:05:19.885 --> 0:05:25.885 plants in my backyard, for Scythia intermedia, Daucus, carota, mitchella repents. 0:05:27.005 --> 0:05:30.765 I studied environmental science and became something of an ecology nerd. 0:05:31.645 --> 0:05:34.565 I started multiple YouTube channels like plant went On Me 0:05:34.725 --> 0:05:38.165 in Flock, and wrote a few books. The latest one, 0:05:38.525 --> 0:05:41.005 How to Make a Plant Love You, is about plants 0:05:41.205 --> 0:05:45.725 and are evolving relationship to them. Over the course of 0:05:45.725 --> 0:05:49.165 a decade plus, I transformed my Brooklyn apartment with over 0:05:49.205 --> 0:05:52.445 a thousand plants and am now working on a botanical 0:05:52.445 --> 0:05:56.525 oasis in central New York. So yeah, I like plants 0:05:57.005 --> 0:06:03.245 just a little, and that is what drew me to 0:06:03.405 --> 0:06:09.725 this store. Because something's happening in the world of plants. 0:06:09.765 --> 0:06:16.005 Something you need to know about, something sinister. Take that 0:06:16.085 --> 0:06:19.365 raid you just heard about in Italy. At first, blush, 0:06:19.445 --> 0:06:23.045 it just sounds like a quirky news headline, like honestly, 0:06:23.525 --> 0:06:27.925 who steals a cactus? But as it turns out, a 0:06:28.045 --> 0:06:32.845 lot of people do. Thirty one percent of all the 0:06:32.885 --> 0:06:37.485 world's cacti are at risk of extinction. That's a third 0:06:37.605 --> 0:06:40.685 of the world's cacti, according to a twenty fifteen study. 0:06:41.805 --> 0:06:45.165 Just a few months ago, a group of scientists writing 0:06:45.165 --> 0:06:49.605 for the journal Nature Plants said cacti are quote one 0:06:49.685 --> 0:06:53.725 of the most endangered groups of organisms on the planet. 0:06:54.445 --> 0:06:57.845 Doctor Barbara Getch, a conservation biologist, is one of the 0:06:57.885 --> 0:07:04.245 authors of that study. So basically, we assessed every extant 0:07:04.285 --> 0:07:08.485 species actis for the UCN Red List of Threatened Species. 0:07:09.525 --> 0:07:13.285 So what these doesuc tells you what's the probability of 0:07:13.285 --> 0:07:18.765 a species going extinct? And what she found is frankly disturbing. 0:07:19.445 --> 0:07:23.365 For threatened species, the main cause of threat, or the 0:07:23.365 --> 0:07:27.645 main driver of threat was unscrupulous collection. Almost half of 0:07:27.685 --> 0:07:31.485 the world's threatened cacti are at risk of extinction, not 0:07:31.565 --> 0:07:36.525 because of problems like development or livestock grazing, but because 0:07:37.085 --> 0:07:42.725 of poaching, and this threat isn't new. Back in nineteen 0:07:42.765 --> 0:07:45.765 eighty five, The New York Times was already on it, 0:07:46.245 --> 0:07:50.765 writing shortly after a rare species is described in a publication, 0:07:51.125 --> 0:07:54.565 its habitat is invaded by well to do hobbyists who 0:07:54.645 --> 0:07:59.445 simply must have a specimen. Within months, certain species have 0:07:59.565 --> 0:08:05.205 become extinct after decades of unscrupulous collecting. We've reached a 0:08:05.285 --> 0:08:09.525 tipping point. These plants have been poached for a very 0:08:09.565 --> 0:08:14.125 long time. I think what has changed a lot in 0:08:14.165 --> 0:08:18.925 the last years is how easily available they have become 0:08:19.205 --> 0:08:24.445 online and through other platforms like WhatsApp. That has been 0:08:24.485 --> 0:08:28.485 a complete game changer. The game changer here isn't just 0:08:28.565 --> 0:08:33.485 a cactus problem, It's a plant problem. In the US, 0:08:33.885 --> 0:08:37.485 home decor is a growing industry and rising with it 0:08:38.085 --> 0:08:42.805 the demand for house plants. In twenty nineteen, the National 0:08:42.845 --> 0:08:46.205 Gardening Association claimed that house plant sales in America had 0:08:46.325 --> 0:08:50.405 risen almost fifty percent in just three years. And I'm 0:08:50.405 --> 0:08:54.645 going to be honest, I feel a little bit responsible now. 0:08:54.645 --> 0:08:57.045 A few years ago I uploaded one of the first 0:08:57.205 --> 0:09:00.365 plant on boxing videos online. You may notice that I 0:09:00.405 --> 0:09:04.565 have this big box right here of live plants, so 0:09:04.605 --> 0:09:08.605 I thought we'd do an unboxing ceremony. I had no 0:09:08.725 --> 0:09:11.925 clue that my plant filled apartment or videos like that 0:09:12.125 --> 0:09:16.045 would go viral, but ever since then it's been copied 0:09:16.445 --> 0:09:24.805 thousands of times over lucky viewers getting closed on Instagram 0:09:24.805 --> 0:09:28.885 and YouTube. Plant aficionados like myself started to garner tens 0:09:28.965 --> 0:09:33.805 of thousands of followers, and then the pandemic. The pandemic 0:09:33.845 --> 0:09:42.645 happened during the first COVID lockdown. People trapped indoors, doom scrolling, TikTok, 0:09:42.645 --> 0:09:48.405 and Instagram collectively decided to transform their homes into garden kingdoms. 0:09:49.245 --> 0:09:52.805 I mean, what else was there to do. The demand 0:09:53.085 --> 0:09:58.045 was instatiable, and potted plants, especially those rare items pursued 0:09:58.085 --> 0:10:03.765 by hobbyists, started going for heinous asking prices. Like there 0:10:03.845 --> 0:10:07.485 was a variegated rafadop four a tetrasperma marketed as a 0:10:07.525 --> 0:10:11.005 Philodendron minima, which sold on a New Zealand auction site 0:10:11.005 --> 0:10:15.405 for eight thousand, one hundred and fifty bucks. A year later, 0:10:15.725 --> 0:10:19.605 a specimen of the same species with just eight leaves 0:10:20.325 --> 0:10:24.845 would sell for more than twenty five grand. The point 0:10:24.965 --> 0:10:27.605 is rare plants could go for a lot of money 0:10:27.725 --> 0:10:30.845 right now, and where there's lots of money, there are 0:10:30.885 --> 0:10:35.525 people with how do I put it, less puer motivations 0:10:35.845 --> 0:10:40.365 trying to exploit it. My name's Jenny Feltham and I'm 0:10:40.365 --> 0:10:44.085 working with the Wildlife Justice Commission, which is an ANGEO 0:10:44.285 --> 0:10:48.125 that's based in the Hague in the Netherlands. Basically, what 0:10:48.205 --> 0:10:52.605 the Wildlife Justice Commission does is it operates to tackle 0:10:52.725 --> 0:10:57.485 the transnational organized crime issue. A few years back, Jenny 0:10:57.565 --> 0:11:01.805 discovered that organized crime syndicates had taken up wildlife crimes 0:11:01.845 --> 0:11:05.765 such as plant poaching. It is, in her words, of 0:11:05.805 --> 0:11:10.045 the perfect crime. You want your money making activity to 0:11:10.205 --> 0:11:12.725 be low risk. You want a low risk of being caught, 0:11:13.325 --> 0:11:17.325 and you want also if you are caught, low penalties. 0:11:17.365 --> 0:11:21.445 And environmental crime in general has ticked those boxes, so 0:11:22.205 --> 0:11:26.885 you know, the lure of high profits is there in 0:11:26.925 --> 0:11:31.445 timber crime, especially the numbers broadly, they're really big. It's 0:11:31.565 --> 0:11:36.205 estimated to be twenty billion dollars a year type industry 0:11:36.645 --> 0:11:40.445 where it's estimated to be the fourth largest illegal trade 0:11:40.925 --> 0:11:44.205 in the world. And then on the risk side, we 0:11:44.285 --> 0:11:48.805 often see environmental crime isn't prioritized by law enforcement compared 0:11:48.805 --> 0:11:53.245 to other types of crime. There are countless examples, from 0:11:53.285 --> 0:11:56.965 the million dollars of stolen cacti in Italy to the 0:11:57.045 --> 0:11:59.325 time a woman in New Zealand tried to sneak pass 0:11:59.405 --> 0:12:07.405 airport customs with nine hundred and forty seven succulents hidden underneath. So, yeah, 0:12:07.445 --> 0:12:10.565 there is a demand for this because the other aspect 0:12:10.645 --> 0:12:13.485 is consumer demand at the end of the supply chain. 0:12:13.565 --> 0:12:16.725 That really drives the whole thing. If there's demand for 0:12:16.765 --> 0:12:20.685 these high value wildlife commodities, if people are willing to 0:12:20.725 --> 0:12:25.005 pay high prices for these things, criminal networks will want 0:12:25.045 --> 0:12:28.885 to supply that. They will find a way to provide 0:12:28.925 --> 0:12:33.645 that service, regardless of whether it's legal or not. The 0:12:33.645 --> 0:12:37.405 whole problem with plant crime, though, is that nobody in 0:12:37.445 --> 0:12:43.165 power really seems to care. That's unfortunately the way it 0:12:43.205 --> 0:12:46.845 goes law enforcement authorities. They have a whole lot of 0:12:47.405 --> 0:12:50.925 different types of priorities that they have to work under. 0:12:51.205 --> 0:12:54.405 An environmental crime often is not at the top of 0:12:54.445 --> 0:12:59.605 that list, and this has made plant thieves especially reason. 0:13:01.885 --> 0:13:06.965 Take the Saint Helena abnue trokotapsis abne, a delicate white 0:13:06.965 --> 0:13:10.125 flowering plant that grows in just one place in the world, 0:13:10.645 --> 0:13:14.405 the island of Saint Helena deep in the South Atlantic Ocean. 0:13:15.685 --> 0:13:18.565 The plant has been on the brink of extinction for decades, 0:13:19.165 --> 0:13:23.445 and until recently, the last two wild plants were literally 0:13:23.485 --> 0:13:27.045 clinging to life on the edge of a cliff. While. 0:13:27.085 --> 0:13:30.405 A few years back, a horticulturist was browsing online when 0:13:30.405 --> 0:13:34.085 he noticed somebody in California trying to sell the plant online. 0:13:34.965 --> 0:13:37.405 According to an article by Sam Knight in The Guardian, 0:13:37.725 --> 0:13:41.165 the scientists emailed the cellar and kindly implored them not 0:13:41.285 --> 0:13:44.605 to sell the ebony. It was among the rarest of 0:13:44.645 --> 0:13:49.085 the rare and had to be protected, and besides, selling 0:13:49.085 --> 0:13:54.165 it online was illegal, extremely illegal. A few days later, 0:13:54.445 --> 0:13:58.565 the scientist opened his inbox and found a reply. Screw you, 0:13:59.005 --> 0:14:15.045 the seller said, this is capitalism. The tough thing about 0:14:15.045 --> 0:14:17.885 the plant poaching crisis and the black market for wildlife 0:14:17.885 --> 0:14:21.005 in general, is frankly getting people to care about it. 0:14:21.925 --> 0:14:25.005 Even in the niche world of wildlife crime, plants get 0:14:25.005 --> 0:14:29.005 the short stick. Everybody wants to save the elephants, the tigers, 0:14:29.085 --> 0:14:32.845 the whales. Not many people are slapping bumper stickers onto 0:14:32.845 --> 0:14:36.965 their subarus demanding we saved the Saint Helena ebony and 0:14:37.125 --> 0:14:40.045 there's a reason for this, and you're probably suffering from 0:14:40.045 --> 0:14:45.085 it right now. It's something called plant blindness. I would 0:14:45.165 --> 0:14:52.125 describe it as people tend to overlook plant life, and 0:14:52.245 --> 0:14:55.645 that there's a bias towards seeing, for instance, animal life 0:14:55.725 --> 0:15:00.285 more prominently. That's doctor Jared Margulis, a professor at the 0:15:00.405 --> 0:15:03.565 University of Alabama and an expert on the epidemic of 0:15:03.685 --> 0:15:07.205 plant poaching. Around the last five years, I've been studying 0:15:07.485 --> 0:15:10.965 various kinds of illegal and illicit trade and cactus and 0:15:11.045 --> 0:15:16.725 succulent plants. According to doctor Margulis, plant blindness is essentially 0:15:16.765 --> 0:15:19.645 a bias. Now, if I asked you to sit back 0:15:19.645 --> 0:15:22.405 and close your eyes and dream up the world's most 0:15:22.525 --> 0:15:27.485 vulnerable species, images of tigers or rhinos or even bumblebees 0:15:27.565 --> 0:15:30.805 might dance through your head. But the truth is the 0:15:30.845 --> 0:15:35.005 most threatened taxa in the world are plants. The sort 0:15:35.005 --> 0:15:38.205 of botanical world around us where plant life is sort 0:15:38.245 --> 0:15:42.925 of becomes this inert backdrop to a livelier animal world. 0:15:43.325 --> 0:15:47.765 There's a sense of a bias towards being more concerned 0:15:47.805 --> 0:15:51.125 about animals and other species that, for instance, move and 0:15:51.205 --> 0:15:54.845 have eyes and appear more sentient than plant life. That 0:15:54.885 --> 0:15:59.605 backdrop includes cacti, conifers, and psycats. In fact, a global 0:15:59.645 --> 0:16:03.605 treaty designed to protect wildlife called Sites suggests that for 0:16:03.765 --> 0:16:08.005 every threatened animal, there are at least five threatened plants. 0:16:08.925 --> 0:16:11.685 But you wouldn't believe those numbers if you were to say, 0:16:11.885 --> 0:16:16.725 examine wildlife policy. Plant blindness has very serious and negative 0:16:16.725 --> 0:16:19.525 consequences for how we relate to plants, but also think 0:16:19.565 --> 0:16:24.365 about the conservation of species. In the United States, for instance, 0:16:24.765 --> 0:16:29.765 plants make up sixty percent of all endangered wildlife, but 0:16:29.845 --> 0:16:32.525 if you look at the government's spreadsheets, you'll see that 0:16:32.605 --> 0:16:37.165 in the country's wildlife protection budget just two percent two 0:16:37.285 --> 0:16:42.165 percent goes towards plant life. Now, that is plant blindness. 0:16:43.085 --> 0:16:45.885 Put simply, we're never going to see a sad Sarah 0:16:45.965 --> 0:16:49.565 McLaughlin commercial with an uprooted orchid on screen, but perhaps 0:16:49.565 --> 0:16:54.445 we should. Globally, two out of five plants are risk 0:16:54.525 --> 0:16:58.405 of going extinct. And not to be alarmist, but this 0:16:58.525 --> 0:17:01.765 is a huge issue. It is human centric to say 0:17:01.925 --> 0:17:04.045 that without plants we would all be dead very quickly, 0:17:04.045 --> 0:17:06.565 but I think it's also an important way of prompting 0:17:06.605 --> 0:17:09.685 people to think about how important plants are and everything 0:17:09.725 --> 0:17:12.365 we do in our ability to thrive and flourish on 0:17:12.405 --> 0:17:17.845 the planet. Doctor Margulis is right. Just look around you. 0:17:18.685 --> 0:17:20.285 As I shared in my book How to Make a 0:17:20.325 --> 0:17:25.805 Plant Love You, the wooden beams, floorboards, tables, chairs, picture frames, 0:17:25.845 --> 0:17:30.205 bookshelves and doors we pass through were all once trees. 0:17:30.805 --> 0:17:34.565 The cotton sheets that cover us at night plants. Even 0:17:34.565 --> 0:17:38.445 our polyester shirts, they were derived from storehouses of ancient 0:17:38.485 --> 0:17:42.085 plants locked beneath the Earth's surface, as is most of 0:17:42.125 --> 0:17:47.765 the fuel that powers our vehicles and warms our homes. Plants. Meanwhile, 0:17:48.045 --> 0:17:50.845 latex from trees and the tropics make the tires of 0:17:50.885 --> 0:17:54.885 airplanes and cars, and insulate the undersea internet cables that 0:17:55.005 --> 0:17:59.565 make listening to this podcast possible. The lotions and bombs 0:17:59.605 --> 0:18:02.445 we use to clean and soften our skin have all 0:18:02.485 --> 0:18:06.885 originated or been synthesized from a plant. It's unique chemistry. 0:18:07.845 --> 0:18:10.285 The coffee that gets us moving in the morning, the 0:18:10.405 --> 0:18:13.285 tea that soothes us at night, and the wine or 0:18:13.365 --> 0:18:16.885 beer we imbibed in wine, the oils that make our 0:18:16.925 --> 0:18:21.805 candles are soaked. It's all plants. And what about high 0:18:21.805 --> 0:18:25.405 fructose corn syrup? Even if you're on an all meat diet, 0:18:25.645 --> 0:18:28.645 you indirectly eat plants. After all, do you think your 0:18:28.645 --> 0:18:34.405 burger was grass fed or grain fed? Plants create roughly 0:18:34.485 --> 0:18:38.045 seventy five percent of the oxygen we breathe. They make 0:18:38.125 --> 0:18:40.645 up eighty percent of the food we eat. They are 0:18:40.685 --> 0:18:44.325 the basis for most of the antibiotics and medicines that 0:18:44.405 --> 0:18:51.525 keep us healthy. You're probably thinking, okay, okay, we get it. 0:18:52.245 --> 0:18:54.605 But these are just a few examples of how crucial 0:18:54.645 --> 0:18:58.605 plant life is to our lives. For humanity writ large, 0:18:58.765 --> 0:19:01.125 we rely on so many different species in so many 0:19:01.125 --> 0:19:05.005 different ways. As we lose more and more species on 0:19:05.045 --> 0:19:08.245 the plant to extinction, and as more and more species 0:19:08.285 --> 0:19:11.445 become vulnerable, there will be all kinds of negative consequences 0:19:12.045 --> 0:19:16.365 when plants disappear. There's a cascading effect of bad news. 0:19:17.645 --> 0:19:20.805 I think the author Ray Bradberry explained it best. In 0:19:20.925 --> 0:19:24.205 nineteen fifty two, he published a short story called A 0:19:24.325 --> 0:19:28.805 Sound of Thunder. In it, Bradberry imagined a future where 0:19:28.805 --> 0:19:33.605 scientists cracked the secret to time travel. Naturally, investors celebrate 0:19:33.645 --> 0:19:39.125 this milestone by monetizing it. One company sells time traveling safaris, 0:19:39.165 --> 0:19:42.365 offering people the opportunity to go back to the late Cretaceous. 0:19:46.285 --> 0:19:49.725 But on one of these trips, a tourist accidentally crushes 0:19:49.765 --> 0:19:53.925 a single butterfly. When the tourist returns to the present day, 0:19:54.325 --> 0:19:59.365 the world is strangely altered. People talk fight, the results 0:19:59.365 --> 0:20:02.645 of a recent election have changed for the worse. One 0:20:02.725 --> 0:20:09.845 small misstep changed everything. Ecology is really complex, and species 0:20:09.885 --> 0:20:12.845 hold relationships with each other, and so, for instance, when 0:20:12.845 --> 0:20:16.565 you poach or steal a plant towards extinction, what are 0:20:16.565 --> 0:20:19.525 the pollinators that relied on that species to survive and 0:20:19.605 --> 0:20:22.645 what happens to them and what species relied on those pollinators, 0:20:22.925 --> 0:20:26.925 And so there's these cascading series of interactions in consequences, 0:20:26.965 --> 0:20:29.085 and the reality is we don't know what most of 0:20:29.085 --> 0:20:32.645 those consequences might yet be. But it's something that we 0:20:32.685 --> 0:20:35.205 need to be very concerned about now That might sound 0:20:35.325 --> 0:20:40.805 distant and theoretical. So here's a real world example. The 0:20:40.925 --> 0:20:45.365 Ohia lehua tree of Hawaii, or Metrosideros polymorpha, is a 0:20:45.405 --> 0:20:49.085 prominent plant on the islands and is featured in native mythology, 0:20:49.925 --> 0:20:53.045 but livestock as well as imports of non native plants 0:20:53.045 --> 0:20:57.965 from Portugal and South America have endangered it. Populations of 0:20:57.965 --> 0:21:02.645 Ohia trees are declining and most recently, a foreign fungus 0:21:02.685 --> 0:21:08.045 has strangled entire groves in a Bradbury and Twist. This 0:21:08.125 --> 0:21:11.325 deadly fungus was likely introduced by a tourist who is 0:21:11.365 --> 0:21:13.645 carrying it on their hiking boots and had meandered off 0:21:13.645 --> 0:21:17.485 a hiking trail. The result has had a ripple effect 0:21:17.485 --> 0:21:22.205 acrossed Polynesia. The e evie, a bright red tropical bird 0:21:22.245 --> 0:21:25.525 with a crescent beak, depends on the Ohea for food 0:21:25.565 --> 0:21:29.965 and breeding. But as plant populations have dwindled, so has 0:21:30.005 --> 0:21:33.565 the bird, and with the bird, so goes the plants 0:21:33.605 --> 0:21:38.525 it pollinates, including the Lobelia grayana, a spiky lavender look 0:21:38.565 --> 0:21:43.125 alike that is now endangered. Who knows how far this 0:21:43.205 --> 0:21:46.925 ripple effect continues. If the world of plants can teach 0:21:47.005 --> 0:21:51.245 us anything, it's that everything is really connected. The world 0:21:51.285 --> 0:21:53.925 we live in is like a game of Jenga. Even 0:21:53.925 --> 0:21:58.445 a mild disturbance can lead to a total collapse. This 0:21:58.525 --> 0:22:02.485 is especially true of the world's rarest plants. A single 0:22:02.605 --> 0:22:06.485 death or a single theft can dis rupped an entire 0:22:06.605 --> 0:22:11.885 ecosystems destiny. What that means for us is anyone's gas. 0:22:24.685 --> 0:22:27.525 I want to introduce you to a plant. The living 0:22:27.645 --> 0:22:32.845 rock cactus or Ariocarpus fisheratus. It's a squat and plush 0:22:32.965 --> 0:22:36.645 cactus with wrinkled leaves and no spines. It is like 0:22:36.685 --> 0:22:39.605 the jab of the hut of succulents. In other words, 0:22:39.845 --> 0:22:43.285 it's sort of ugly. In its native habitat, it can 0:22:43.325 --> 0:22:46.485 be easily mistaken, as the name suggests, for a pile 0:22:46.525 --> 0:22:51.685 of rocks. To many passers by, it is completely unremarkable. 0:22:52.605 --> 0:22:59.365 That is until it blooms. In midsummer, the living rock 0:22:59.405 --> 0:23:04.525 cactus reveals a vibrant, electric pink blossom. Some consider it 0:23:04.605 --> 0:23:09.165 the prettiest flowering cactus in the world. For hobbyists, the 0:23:09.285 --> 0:23:11.525 nice thing about the living rock cactus is that it 0:23:11.565 --> 0:23:15.365 doesn't require a bank loan. A single cactus costs around 0:23:15.365 --> 0:23:18.925 one hundred bucks, which is expensive but attainable for an 0:23:19.005 --> 0:23:23.205 entry level plant collector, and that has made it extremely 0:23:23.245 --> 0:23:28.125 popular in places with a growing middle class like Asia. 0:23:28.365 --> 0:23:30.605 One of the reasons the living rock is so popular 0:23:31.125 --> 0:23:33.925 in the world, especially in Asia, is that it is 0:23:33.925 --> 0:23:37.365 a long living plan that's Eric Jumper. He's a retired 0:23:37.405 --> 0:23:40.725 special agent with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. People 0:23:40.765 --> 0:23:43.685 will get one for a child when they're born, so 0:23:43.725 --> 0:23:46.885 they can live their lives living. You know it's charming, right. 0:23:47.725 --> 0:23:50.445 The problem is, the living rock cactus is a critically 0:23:50.525 --> 0:23:54.245 endangered species. You cannot pluck it from the desert. This 0:23:54.285 --> 0:23:57.325 living rock cactus is an Apendix one, which is the 0:23:57.365 --> 0:24:03.045 most restrictive. It restricts all commercial trade in anything that's 0:24:03.085 --> 0:24:06.885 listed as Appendix one. So they're afforded the highest amount 0:24:06.885 --> 0:24:10.365 of protection. And in the early two thousands, Special Agent 0:24:10.445 --> 0:24:13.285 Jumper started getting calls to look into a string of 0:24:13.405 --> 0:24:16.685 rock cactus poaching. I was stationed in San Antonio. I 0:24:16.685 --> 0:24:21.005 started getting calls from people in seculent societies, mostly out 0:24:21.045 --> 0:24:25.325 of Austin, Texas, advising me about things they were seeing online. 0:24:25.645 --> 0:24:27.765 I took notes on that, but just didn't really act 0:24:27.765 --> 0:24:30.285 on it. I didn't know that there was a worldwide 0:24:30.285 --> 0:24:34.725 market for cactus at that time. At some point in 0:24:34.765 --> 0:24:39.085 twenty twelve, an inspector for the USDA also came to 0:24:39.125 --> 0:24:41.925 me with a name of a business that was selling 0:24:41.965 --> 0:24:45.925 a lot of cactus and a lot of them were endangered. 0:24:46.485 --> 0:24:49.405 And then yeah to say, hey, you need to look 0:24:49.445 --> 0:24:53.365 at this, and this is what started it. Jumpers started 0:24:53.365 --> 0:24:56.645 digging into the case, learning everything he could about the 0:24:56.685 --> 0:25:00.925 cactus and We kept getting different calls telling us, Hey, 0:25:01.125 --> 0:25:04.245 this guy here, this guy in these Texas, this guy 0:25:04.285 --> 0:25:07.765 in North Texas, this guy in West Texas is doing this. 0:25:08.405 --> 0:25:12.405 He's the one supplying such and such. Working on that 0:25:12.445 --> 0:25:15.285 tip Jumper put an alert airports to be on the 0:25:15.325 --> 0:25:21.285 lookout for illicit packages making their way overseas. Those are 0:25:21.325 --> 0:25:24.365 our two tasks to try to intersect the package, and 0:25:24.485 --> 0:25:27.365 of course you do that by putting alerts out to 0:25:27.485 --> 0:25:31.165 our inspectors at our airports, and then we tried to 0:25:32.045 --> 0:25:40.245 find the source. At first, only a few cacti trickled in, 0:25:40.685 --> 0:25:43.005 most of them turning up at the International Mail Sorting 0:25:43.005 --> 0:25:47.925 facility at Chicago O'Hare Airport. Those boxes contained one or 0:25:47.965 --> 0:25:54.605 two plants, but after a few years the poachers began 0:25:54.725 --> 0:25:59.045 brazenly stuffing as many as forty cacti into a single shipment. 0:26:00.125 --> 0:26:02.925 The seizures started happening, Boom, boom, boom. It took maybe 0:26:02.965 --> 0:26:05.685 a year after alert went out and then boom they 0:26:05.725 --> 0:26:08.525 started hidden. After that, you know, then we have a case. 0:26:08.765 --> 0:26:10.605 Whatever happens from the air on, we have a case. 0:26:11.605 --> 0:26:15.045 The vast majority of the boxes were postmarked for places 0:26:15.085 --> 0:26:19.565 like Shanghai, Bangkok and Beijing, although a handful ended up 0:26:19.605 --> 0:26:25.205 in Europe too. Regardless of destination, each box was mislabeled 0:26:25.245 --> 0:26:30.965 as home decor or ceramic pottery suspicious right. Plus, none 0:26:30.965 --> 0:26:34.325 of the shipments contained the appropriate paperwork for exporting plants. 0:26:35.565 --> 0:26:39.205 Agents followed the paper trail. They traced the shipments to 0:26:39.245 --> 0:26:43.805 southwestern Texas, just north of Big Ben National Park. Now 0:26:43.845 --> 0:26:47.645 agents quickly discovered that the cacti were shipped by a 0:26:47.805 --> 0:26:52.245 ring of organized cactus smugglers. We'll trying to run down 0:26:52.285 --> 0:26:57.005 all of that stuff, and finally ended up running into 0:26:57.205 --> 0:27:00.965 what turned out to be one of them. The main 0:27:01.045 --> 0:27:07.205 sources was a ranch out in West Texas. Agents squared 0:27:07.245 --> 0:27:10.445 their sights on six older Texans, all men, two of 0:27:10.445 --> 0:27:15.405 whom claimed to own and operate cactus nurseries. Officials surveiled 0:27:15.445 --> 0:27:18.765 their homes, They watched the men move in and out, 0:27:19.445 --> 0:27:23.765 and then the warrants came in, signed by a judge, 0:27:24.565 --> 0:27:30.685 and the raids began. At Troy Layton Baker's home, officials 0:27:30.685 --> 0:27:34.445 seized one hundred and seventy seven living rock cacti. At 0:27:34.485 --> 0:27:37.965 Mark Refield's home in Spicewood, agents found five hundred forty 0:27:38.045 --> 0:27:41.645 nine A few hundred miles away at an RV park. 0:27:41.965 --> 0:27:45.965 Agents stormed into Paul Armstrong's property and found six hundred 0:27:45.965 --> 0:27:50.405 and fifty eight illegal cacti, But the biggest bust belonged 0:27:50.445 --> 0:27:53.205 to Maurice Ray Carter, the owner of the so called 0:27:53.245 --> 0:27:57.965 Texas Native Cactus Company. At his place in Terlingua, Texas, 0:27:58.005 --> 0:28:01.005 agents found more than one thousand, six hundred and fifteen 0:28:01.045 --> 0:28:06.045 living rock cacti, all illegally poached. In total, US Fish 0:28:06.045 --> 0:28:10.485 and Wildlife Service agencies more than four thousand illegally harvested plants. 0:28:12.365 --> 0:28:17.325 And then there were the weapons. In the home of 0:28:17.405 --> 0:28:21.605 Mark Refield, another cactus business owner, the FEDS would seize 0:28:21.605 --> 0:28:26.645 eleven pistols, two shotguns, and four military style assault rifles. 0:28:27.725 --> 0:28:30.525 You had a huge compound out in the middle of 0:28:30.565 --> 0:28:33.405 the desert, and we were lucky enough to catch them 0:28:33.565 --> 0:28:38.005 leaving town going back there instead of at his perfect 0:28:38.565 --> 0:28:42.045 because he told us if you had caught me at 0:28:42.085 --> 0:28:44.805 my house, it would have went down. It had been 0:28:45.205 --> 0:28:54.605 a shootout, a shootout over cacti. But as the six 0:28:54.605 --> 0:28:58.325 men went to trial, it became clear why there was 0:28:58.365 --> 0:29:01.965 a lot of money in those little stubby plants. The 0:29:02.045 --> 0:29:06.005 men had grossed approximately seventy five thousand dollars just by 0:29:06.045 --> 0:29:10.805 mislabeling plants that they had torn from the ground. All 0:29:10.925 --> 0:29:14.525 six received a litany of fines and probation. A judge 0:29:14.645 --> 0:29:18.165 ordered Morris Carter, the man hiding sixteen hundred living rocks 0:29:18.205 --> 0:29:21.845 at his home, to pay sixty thousand dollars in restitution, 0:29:22.245 --> 0:29:25.245 splitting it between the National Park Foundation and the US 0:29:25.325 --> 0:29:30.645 Fish and Wildlife Service. Despite those heavy fines, Agent Jumper 0:29:30.765 --> 0:29:33.725