Orchids: blooming on the black market

Billions of orchids are bought and sold around the world every year. Most of this trade is legal and made up of artificially grown flowers. However, alongside the regulated trade, thousands of orchids are illegally harvested from the wild - and it's causing big problems for some of the most coveted species. In this episode of Wild Crimes, we'll find out why no other plant has captured our imagination quite like orchids, and learn about how we can better protect them. Discover more with the Museum's Dr Sandy Knapp, Dr Jacob Phelps of Lancaster University, Dr David Roberts of the University of Kent, Dr Amy Hinsley at the University of Oxford, botanist Dr Tatiana Arias and collector Juan Felipe Posada. Learn more about the illegal wildlife trade and support the Natural History Museum's work at nhm.ac.uk/wildcrimes.

You can listen to Orchids: blooming on the black market online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Orchids: blooming on the black market is an episode from Wild Crimes by The Natural History Museum, London.

This episode is 38:59 long.

This episode was published on Jul 22, 2021.

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