0 of 2
Self-taught botanist Pieter van Wyk is so dedicated to keeping indigenous succulents out of the hands of poachers that he fears for his life.
Van Wyk is the reluctant star of an award-winning new documentary called Vet Vannie Land (Succulents of the Land) which examines the illegal poaching and trade of endemic succulents in the Richtersveld.
Born in the region, Van Wyk, 37, has adorned his body with vygie tattoos and spent his life researching and documenting the plants that grow in the rocky, arid desert that he is passionate about protecting.
The documentary, which was named the best short documentary at the annual Silwerskerm film festival in Cape Town in August, also won for best directing and best editing in the same category. The film can be streamed on DStv’s Catch Up.
Named by a CNN programme as “the plant shepherd”, the ranger, who works at the Richtersveld Desert Botanical Garden, is keenly aware that the syndicates who are plundering the area’s succulents to sell them in foreign markets where they are “trending” are not to be messed with.
I have to take that risk because no-one else is going to do it. And I’m not that easy to take down
And, although being the face of the film puts him in possible peril, he is prepared to take the risk.
“I have to take that risk because no-one else is going to do it. And I’m not that easy to take down,” he tells the Daily Dispatch in an exclusive interview.
Though he says he has “absolutely” been threatened, he is not comfortable to speak more about this to a journalist.
“It’s too dangerous,” he says.
“I don’t know what danger that would put me in [to talk about this]. They are always watching me. There’s a lot of me in this movie but there are also other people who are fighting this who have been put into jail by whoever is involved in this and that includes people in the government and high up in the police.
“They have put police who have been fighting this in jail. They can’t keep them in jail because they can’t find them guilty of anything, but it allows the criminals to walk free for as long as possible.
“The scale of what is going on with wildlife trade — whether plants, birds or animals is insane. It is the same syndicates that are involved with all of this poaching.”
Vet Vannie Land, which has English subtitles, shows how unwitting influencers flog intriguing succulents online, creating a market which threatens the existence of many species.
“They use clever social media marketing, making people fall in love with them and making them believe that it is something valuable. And that is the harsh reality with humans — that we would pay more for something because someone says it is worth more.”
Van Wyk says that the poaching spiked just before the Covid-19 pandemic when demand for them boomed.
“We now have local syndicates that have evolved because of this new trade in succulents. It has been happening for decades, but not on this scale. It is now causing extinction. It is causing species to be wiped out. That started in 2019 just shortly before lockdown.
“A lot will have to happen to make an impact. People need to become aware that their black market plants are destroying a region's ecology. Raising awareness, especially in the countries where the plants are ‘trending’, is incredibly important.
“The more people realise that they are destroying ecosystems when they buy plants on the black market, the better our chances of fighting this thing. The big challenge, however, is legislation. In many countries it is not illegal to trade in poached succulents.”
Producer Danielle McDonald, who made the compelling documentary with her husband Karl Raubenheimer, says she met Van Wyk while the couple made a YouTube series about SA’s Unesco heritage sites in 2020.
“That’s how we met a ranger who worked with Pieter at the Richtersveld Transfrontier Park, and she first told us about their struggle with the succulents. A year or two later we went back to the Northern Cape and interviewed someone about succulent poaching. That’s where we first really realised that this was a big and important story.”
Though McDonald was already aware of the multimillion dollar illegal trade in plants, she did not realise just how much money was changing hands until she started shooting Vet Vannie Land.
“There was a bigger shock: Spending time in the field with someone such as Pieter opens your eyes to the damage. Also, seeing how much he cares and how he dedicates his life to this fight against looting, you can’t help but care too.
“The worst for me was when we went to look for a specific conophytum species in the field, and when we got there, it had already been harvested. That realisation that that little plant would never grow there again was a sad moment for the whole team.”
I feel all life is equally important and we don’t have the power that we think we have to decide one form of life is more important
Eloquent, well-informed and supremely passionate about the environment he lives in, Van Wyk, with his earrings and tattoos and his unwavering knack of pointing out minuscule succulents clinging to crevices in a harsh environment, is the perfect choice to be the central character of the doccie.
“I know there is a lot of me in this movie but I don’t care about me,” he says. “It is the way the movie conveys the message of what is going on — that is what is amazing about this movie.
“I feel all life is equally important and we don’t have the power that we think we have to decide one form of life is more important. It’s much easier to feel sorry for a rhino because it can bleed, but the reality is that because of plant poaching there are now plants that are already extinct and the chain reaction of that extinction is actually much worse than the large mammals because it can lead to the complete collapse of ecosystems.”
Being a voice for the survival of plant species when testifying against poachers in court was not easy.
“One of the challenges in court is when you stand in front of a judge and he is used to cases of murder or rape and then having to tell him why a criminal should go to jail because of poaching a plant. It was extremely difficult because, similar to members of the public, the court would think this is just a plant. But I testified for the plant. I had to find a way to give a voice to a plant. But then people would see me as the threat.”
On a lighter note, Van Wyk speaks of his tattoos; that they are his small way to flout his conservative upbringing.
“It’s a bit of rebellion because it’s unorthodox especially if you grew up in a tiny Afrikaans community of Alexander Bay in the Richtersveld. Vygies on my back are perfect geometry which shows the perfection of nature. I wanted them on my back to remind myself of the beauty of my environment.”
Says McDonald: “One of his new tattoos, which he got during filming, was for the International Freedom for Nature Award he received for his outstanding efforts to protect succulent plants. Pieter was one of only three people to receive this prestigious award in 2023.”
Van Wyk’s extraordinary interest in tracking and plants began when he was three and was fostered by his mother and grandmother.
“I was a strange kid because I would be interested in living things around me. I would be interested in Nama as a language, when other kids wanted to play PlayStation or video games and watch TV.
“But I was 14 when I really started to dedicate myself to learning about plants and when I started to write my book. There were no sources for plants in the Richtesveld, I couldn’t get anything identified, so I decided to make a source.”
His book, Wildflowers of the Richterveld and South Western Namibia, illustrated with 3,000 photographs, is now complete.
“If everything goes well I hope with all my heart it will be published this year. And then that will be a part of my life I can finish this year and after this I will never ever write a book again!
“I started 22 years ago and then for the last 11 years I spent two to six hours every evening on that book.”
While he conducts research with several universities and has a string of academic and other international awards to his name, Van Wyk is not strictly speaking a botanist.
“Everyone is calling me a botanist, but I’m not a botanist. I’m a naturalist, or an amateur botanist or something like that. But without bragging, I know more about plants from that region than any living person on the planet. I already have enough research to use for a Masters and a PhD.
“But that’s a huge responsibility. It’s a huge weight that’s sitting on me and I need to get that information into the hands of the people as quickly as possible. Because if something happens to me it’s not going to happen again.”
Though botanists have studied the Richterveld over decades, Van Wyk says no-one who has been born there has spent so much time doing so.
“There are almost 5,000 species of plants indigenous to the Richtersveld. It’s an ancient, ancient place. There is a scientific journal publication I am working on and I am hoping to prove this year that under the management of Richtersveld National Park there are more species of plants than any other national park in SA and that includes Table Mountain!”
He is sadly aware of six species that have been wiped out. “The bad thing about this is that they were not threatened by climate, farming or mining. They were just perfectly, happy being where they were and now they are extinct because of humans.
“And this is just the beginning. Because the way plants are marketed with Asian celebrities holding them and making memes. Just 100 000 people wanting to buy a plant can wipe it out.
Van Wyk feels strongly about “growing plants out of extinction”.
“Just grow them,” he says.
“The team I am working with at the botanical garden in SANParks have already successfully got some plants to establish and planted some of the plants back. We are multiplying the material like crazy. We have a retail permit as a nursery and though it is not possible for all species, we can take one mother plant and vegetatively make cuttings. Or one fruit can have 200 seeds so that is 200 plants and some leaves split into two every year.
“That is the ridiculous thing. They don’t have to wipe it out to get it — it is greed.
Things [plants] will go from Richtersveld, Namaqualand, northern Namibia, Angola, to Mozambique and then be shipped to China. Containers full of species. It’s all corruption.
“With the loss of the plants comes the loss of insects, of spiders, of reptiles...
“My world is as big as the Richtersveld. It’s a few million hectares but it’s still tiny in comparison to the rest of the world.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.