Presented by Jared Margulies
Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of Alabama
While illegal wildlife trade (IWT) represents a serious threat to biodiversity globally, research into the prevalence of illegal plant collection and trade remains scarce. Cacti and succulents are known as heavily threatened by over-collection for often illegal, international ornamental trade. In my talk I will present data and evidence from a recent study published in Conservation Biology drawing on a large survey conducted in 2021 on the succulent hobbyist collector community, as well as my forthcoming book on illicit cactus and succulent trade based on ethnographic research I have conducted within cactus and succulent collector communities since 2017. Aims of this research included understanding collector perspectives on the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), the threats IWT poses to cactus and succulent conservation, and how the collector community can better support cactus and succulent conservation efforts worldwide to avoid species extinctions.
Jared Margulies is an assistant professor of geography at the University of Alabama. He is a human-environment geographer whose work focuses on the politics of wildlife conservation, trade, and the commodification and management of wildlife. His book, The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade, will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in October 2023. He has published in a variety of academic journals including Conservation Biology, Environmental Humanities, Political Geography, World Development, The Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Geoforum, Conservation and Society, and the Journal of Political Ecology. He received his PhD in Geography in 2017 from UMBC in Baltimore, MD, which was supported in part by a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship in India. He received his Master’s degree in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management from the University of Oxford in 2010. From 2017-2019, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield, UK.
If you have been fully vaccinated for Covid-19 you are welcome to come and join us for this excellent in person presentation (masks will be highly encouraged but not required). This meeting will also be a Zoom program and will be an important educational and informational event you must see. Also, if using Zoom, be sure to log in to win a $25.00 gift certificate from TCSS or choose a copy of the new 3rd edition of the Field Guide to Cacti & Other Succulents of Arizona. Plant give aways will take place at the in person meeting but that portion of the program, because of the recording, will not appear on Zoom. When leaving the live in person meeting, please enjoy excellent refreshments provided by our member volunteers and also, everyone can get a free plant offered to you by the TCSS.