Scientist jailed for smuggling Malaysia’s rarest flowers
If you enjoyed the Orchid Thief, or the movie Adaptation, this story from the Independent in the UK will surely interest you:
They have always been the most glamorous, exotic flowers on earth; now they are the most at risk. And just why orchids are the world’s most threatened plants has become dramatically clear with the jailing of a senior scientist at a British company who was an ardent orchid collector - and smuggler.
The attempt by Dr Sian Lim to bring more than 100 orchid specimens into Britain illegally from his native Malaysia involved some that are on the brink of extinction in the wild - specifically because of collectors.
Lim, from Putney, south London, head of research and development at Medpharm, a drugs company, was caught at Heathrow in June 2004. He was sentenced to four months in jail at Isleworth Crown Court in west London after admitting 13 charges of smuggling plants that are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). Some specimens can change hands for thousands of pounds. Customs officials and plant conservationists who examined his haul discovered that 126 plants of the 130 they seized from his luggage were all Asian slipper orchids - one of the rarest of all the 750 orchid genera, or groups of species. They are distinguished by a voluptuous lower petal, or lip, and are closely related to Britain’s rarest wild flower, the lady’s slipper. This orchid survived as just one plant, guarded round the clock in a secret location, until recently after British collectors nearly wiped it out. It has now been planted elsewhere. Some Asian slipper orchids, including ones in Lim’s haul, are only known from a single location. Others may now be extinct in the wild, within a few short years of being discovered, such have been the plant-hunters’ activities.
Written by Bobbie on January 20th, 2006 with comments disabled.
Read more articles on Flowers and Fresh Flowers.