Dr Anita Lavorgna and Dr Stuart E Middleton
Illegal commerce in exotic and wild plants and their derivatives threatens and destroys numerous species and important natural resources, and may cause phytosanitary and health problems.
Plants are harvested and traded all over the world to use their parts and derivatives for a variety of purposes, including as ornamental plants, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, construction materials and food.
The policing of illegal plant markets remains limited and poorly resourced, with law enforcement agencies often lacking the technical capacity required to detect, investigate and prosecute these crimes. Within this context, our research brought together criminology, computer science, conservation science and law enforcement expertise to analyse the criminal market in endangered plants by using mixed methods and cross-disciplinary approaches, and to explore strategies to develop digital resources to assist law enforcement.
This policy brief is based on the project FloraGuard: Tackling the illegal trade in endangered plants, led by the University of Southampton's Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology and Department of Electronics and Computer Science.
The project has been supported by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and UK Border Force as project partners. The study employed a mixed method design including online quantitative, qualitative and visual analyses, and semi-structured interviews with law enforcement officers and CITES experts.
