The strange history of Czech cactus hunters – and why some see themselves as Robin Hood figures

Four Czech men were arrested at Guarulhos International Airport in São Paolo, Brazil in February this year on charges of smuggling native species.

Brazil is a well-known centre of the illegal bird and pet trade, but allegations of an attempted theft of more than 100 cactus plants and some 2,000 seeds were perhaps more surprising.

The allegedly poached cacti came from Brazil’s most southern state, Rio Grande do Sul. It’s an area of globally renowned cactus biodiversity with many species that exist nowhere else, often in tiny, isolated populations vulnerable to over-collection.

The four men, including the former president of the Czech and Slovak Cactus Society, were recently released on bail and returned to Czechia after several months in detention in Brazil. Supporters from the Czech cactus community maintain the group are legitimate researchers who collected the specimens for non-commercial purposes.

Framing what happened as a one-off cactus caper would be incorrect. Czech collectors are well-known in the world of cacti and succulents (the wider family of drought-resistant plants) as exceptional growers. They also have a less-than impeccable reputation for illicit trading, although there is no suggestion that this was the case for the four arrested men.

I began researching this trade in 2017 for my book, The Cactus Hunters: Desire and Extinction in the Illicit Succulent Trade. Of the many stories I encountered, none was more surprising than the history of Czech collectors.

The original cactus hunter

At the turn of the 20th century, cacti were already popular ornamental plants across Europe, where they were prized among the bourgeois set. One rising star in this succulent scene was a young man named Vojtěch Frič (he would later adopt the name Alberto Vojtěch Frič after spending long periods of his life in South America).

Born into a prominent family of intellectuals and politicians, Frič became fascinated by cacti at a young age, and quickly amassed one of the more important collections in Central Europe. But following a brutal winter in which his collection was killed by frost, while still a teenager, he set out on a major botanical expedition to southern Brazil where some of his favourite cacti originated.

Although he was not formally trained in botany, his aims were plain: to discover new species and advance cactus taxonomy. To fund his research and expeditions, he sold cacti and seeds to major nurseries across Europe.

Frič soon became lauded back home as an intrepid explorer and student of South America, achieving legendary status in Czechoslovakia. Over the course of his life, he mounted eight expeditions in the Americas, and several species of cacti are named in his honour. Today, the highest honour paid to members of the Czech and Slovak Cactus Society, including one of the men arrested in Brazil, is the “Golden Alberto”.

Cactus kingpins or Robin Hood conservationists?

When I spent several weeks in Czechia in 2018 researching my book, I was struck by Frič’s enduring legacy. Still, it would be too simple to suggest the arrested men were merely trying to replicate the original cactus hunter.

For Czech collectors, their relationship with wildlife trade laws is heavily informed by life behind the Iron Curtain. For many enthusiasts, the landscapes of the Americas came to symbolise freedom and escape, while greenhouses filled with cacti became a “space away from communism”, as one collector related to me.

Isolation from global markets had another outcome: it forced Czech collectors to develop world class skills at germinating seeds, propagating plants and accelerating their growth through grafting. After the cold war, many finally travelled to the cactus habitats they had admired from afar. There, they harvested seeds, searched for new species and, in some cases, poached whole plants. Back home, they would quickly grow the seeds into new plants they could swap or sell.

Many Czech and other European collectors I interviewed acknowledged some of their sourcing was illegal. Yet they saw their actions as justified. Their reasoning was simple: passionate collectors will always seek out rare plants, so it is better for a few experts to obtain seeds or specimens, grow them in greenhouses back home, and supply the market, than leave demand to be met through poaching. I describe these morally ambiguous figures as “Robin Hood conservationists”.

In their words, taking seeds or a handful of plants from the wild is acceptable if it ultimately reduces pressure on wild populations. Their argument has some logic. Across the Americas, entire cactus species have been driven to extinction in the wild by poaching, while currently-popular succulents in southern and east Africa have been poached to functional extinction in the past few years.

Some in the Czech cactus community have defended the men, arguing their expedition focused on plants from Uruguay rather than Brazil and was carried out with landowner permission. Others say that seed collection, unlike the removal of whole plants, can serve conservation rather than harm it, and that the two should not be conflated.

But the arrests in Brazil show the problems with this reasoning. Even highly knowledgeable collectors who understand the conservation risks can still contribute to them. The men were allegedly carrying not only seeds but many plants. While most collectors today do not actively seek out wild-grown plants, there remains a stubborn community willing to pay top dollar for what they see as the real thing.

Conserving cacti

The arrests in Brazil suggest the Robin Hood conservationist is more myth than reality. Yet an important question remains: how to meet demand for rare plants without driving species to extinction.

In theory, countries rich in cactus and succulent biodiversity like Brazil or Mexico could benefit from a regulated trade that supports both conservation and local livelihoods. In practice, many governments instead focus on bans because they are simpler and easier to enforce. But outright prohibition often fails to eliminate demand (as is well evidenced by the war on drugs) and can instead make illegal markets more profitable and harmful.

An alternative approach would focus on developing a legal trade with benefit-sharing. Some in South Africa, for example, are trying to support local communities to grow and sell in-demand succulents, creating economic incentives for conservation rather than poaching.

This is easier said than done. Decades of plant collecting and trading mean wealthier countries have a major advantage in experience and infrastructure. Brazil, Mexico and others may have the native cacti, but it’s very hard for newcomers to compete in the global ornamental plant marketplace.

Tackling the illegal cactus trade should not be the responsibility alone of countries with less wealth and political power. The trade is driven overwhelmingly by demand in wealthier countries that need to acknowledge the role of their citizens.

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