Dr Hong Liu, Assistant Prof. at Florida International University, writes China's efforts to protect its orchids.
China’s desire to be recognized as an important player on the international stage has propelled the country to invest large efforts in many development and research areas. Biodiversity conservation is one of them. This includes the monumental effort to complete IUCN Red List conservation assessments for all of the nation’s higher plants--totalling 30,068 species in 2013.
Among the assessed species, 659 wild orchids were classified as threatened.
Habitat destruction, deterioration, and fragmentation were ranked as the top threats, which is consistent with many worldwide biodiversity threat analyses. However, our recent study found that over-harvesting as a threat was given to only a handful of wild orchid species in China.
For example, based on the IUCN Red List analysis, no species in the orchid genus Dendrobium--a group of orchids known for their high medicinal values and frequent trade--were identified as threaten by over-harvest and trade. This is in sharp contrast to the large number of species and trade volumes reported by two recently published in-depth studies on wild orchid trade in China. One was based on physical markets across southern China, and the other based on the largest e-commerce platform.
We concluded that over-harvesting is hugely underestimated as threat for Chinese orchids listed in IUCN Red List assessments. To aid in future revision of the Red List, we suggested the establishment of a national dynamic list of wild orchids in trade, as a way to offer data-based assessment of wild harvesting as a threat.
In the same study, we also assessed China’s in-situ conservation efforts for wild orchids and found that 54% of the threatened species were recorded in at least one national nature reserve (54.0%), but only 26% were recorded in three or more nature reserves. As to ex-situ conservation efforts, the percent of threatened orchids with ex-situ collections in a Chinese botanical garden or institution with orchid conservation or utilization research interests was relatively high (57.1%) compared to that of non-threatened orchids (49.6%). However, only 9% of threatened orchids have been in a seed storage program.
Despite progress, there is still a long way to go for conservation efforts in order to properly buffer the threats from habitat destruction and over-harvesting.
Read more:
Liu, H., Liu Z. J., Jin, X.H., Gao, J.Y., Chen, Y., Liu, Q., and Zhang, D.Y. 2020. Assessing conservation efforts against threats to wild orchids in China. Biological Conservation. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108484.
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