Correct as of 15 December 2025
CITES has had a major impact on the hobby and since the UK’s split from the EU it had impacted on what plants we can buy.
What is CITES?
The Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is a one-size-fits-all solution to the obscene worldwide trade in animals and plants that are rare or critically endangered. CITES is very broad in its scope, encompassing everything from the poaching of tigers to the plundering of cacti in habitat, but it also includes the sale of animals bred in captivity and plants grown in cultivation. It is also primarily targeted at controlling the commercial trade but as a result greatly impacts the small-scale, amateur enthusiasts, for reasons explained below.
The trade in animals is truly heart breaking and not a subject for this website. However, there is also a HUGE market for habitat-collected cacti and succulents, with the demand mostly coming from Russia, Eastern Europe and the Far East where collectors will pay very high prices for rare and old specimens which have been ripped out of their native habitats only to die thousands of miles away in the greenhouse of some misguided ‘enthusiast’.
How does CITES work?
Looking specifically at plants, CITES has three Appendices which are:
I – species threatened with extinction in habitat
II – species that need careful control to prevent them becoming threatened
III – this category relates to specific countries that have requested control of certain species (this is less relevant to cacti and succulents)
Click HERE for a complete list; you have to scroll down a long way down the list of animals to find the plants at the bottom which seem something of an afterthought and one wonders why the list has not been separated into animals and plants. Note that the regulations on plants apply to both plants and seeds of the species listed.
The upshot of this is that almost all true cacti (Cactaceae) are CITES II listed but this has little effect on obtaining plants raised in cultivation. Those cacti that are exempt from CITES altogether are the leafy cacti in the genera Pereskia, Pereskiopsis and Quiabentia (which are not very cactus-like and not high on the list of most collectors); cultivars of the Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera); and those ghastly coloured ‘mutants’ (as I have seen them called) of species such as Gymnocalycium mihanovichii grafted onto stock of specific cactus species (which, ironically, are themselves CITES II listed). Cultivars and variegated forms – grafted or on their own roots – of other genera, such as Ariocarpus, are also covered by CITES despite the fact that they bear no resemblance to the species and all have been raised in cultivation.
When it comes to the other succulents, there are some notable inclusions in CITES II, including all species of Beaucarnia (the ponytail palm); all succulent euphorbias; almost all aloes; all Anacampseros and Avonia species; and a smattering of more specialist succulents which you probably won’t come across very often.
CITES and the serious collector
Of concern to some enthusiasts in the cactus and succulent world are the genera and species listed in the CITES I Appendix as this restricts their import and export even when plants have been raised in cultivation from seed harvested from cultivated plants. The rules also apply to the trade in seeds of these species.
Until the UK finally broke away from the EU at the end of 2020 you could buy these plants and seeds by post or in person from EU nurseries because movement across borders within the EU was, and still is, permitted but for the UK that is now no longer the case of course. In theory, UK collectors could still buy them but not only would they have to pay for an export licence from the overseas nursery, they would need to apply and pay for an import licence – one for each species and a supplementary licence for each additional specimen! This is very much geared to the bulk shipment of CITES species but as a result makes the importation of single specimens by hobbyists uneconomical.
Each country that has signed up to CITES may interpret the rules in different ways. In correspondence with the CITES team at Kew in July 2021 they confirmed that it IS permissible to sell CITES I listed plants within the UK (as it is within the EU) when they have been propagated from seed.
There is also the ‘Mexican issue’ which resulted from Mexico declaring that any plant species discovered (ie, named in a scientific journal) since 1997 cannot be exported without a permit. The problem is that quite a few cactus species fall into this category because the Mexican government is unable or unwilling to control the collection of plants and seeds from habitat. According to the BCSS the cactus species concerned are: Aztekium valdezii (not yet recognised by taxonomists as a true species and therefore not CITES listed), Escobaria abdita, Mammillaria bertholdii, Strombocactus corregidorae, Turbinicarpus graminispinus and T. heliae. There is also one succulent species: Agave albipilosa.
Take a look at the website in the above link for the full list of genera and species covered under CITES I. Apart from Ariocarpus (all species, hybrids and cultivars), the list includes Discocactus (not to be confused with the epiphytic genus Disocactus), Pediocactus, Pelecyphora, Sclerocactus (not those species classified under Glandulicactus), Strombocactus, Turbinicarpus, and Uebelmannia.
Specific named species include Aztekium ritteri (but not A. hintonii or A. valdezii), Astrophytum asterias, two Escobaria species, Obregonia denegrii, Pachycereus militaris, but not Geohintonia mexicana or Yavia cryptocarpa.
The point to note is that they are all slow-growing, mostly ‘difficult’ species which are much sought after by serious collectors and are expensive. While many are easily raised from seed, particularly Turbinicarpus species (which are often self-fertile and set seed readily), the desire for larger, mature specimens has fuelled the trade in habitat-collected plants. The resulting regulation does, arguably, actively discourage the cultivation of plants from seed and puts further pressure on the wild populations.
When it comes to the CITES I and the other succulents, there are again some notable inclusions, such as Aloe descoignsii (the smallest species), A. fragilis, and A. polyphylla, the first two of which are easily cultivated from offsets but are both are endemic to Madagascar which accounts for the need for protection. Surprisingly, given recent publicity surrounding succulent smugglers, no mesembs (Aizoaceae) are included but the enforcement of local regulations in South Africa may be sufficient at this time. You are generally on much safer ground with the non-cactus succulents but please don’t buy any plant that appears to have come from habitat.
Will CITES work?
Being of a cynical nature, I fear that authorities will go after the easy targets rather than organized crime, just to chalk up a few convictions. For example, the Belgian authorities apparently ‘raided’ ELK in 2019 looking for ‘banned’ plants, while the French authorities intercepted many of those travelling back from the conference through France only to confiscate plants and probably destroy them (the CITES rules are different in France when it comes to transporting plants across borders). UK delegates to ELK run the risk of falling foul of the law but any plants confiscated on entry will likely end up in a bin at Kew Gardens which has neither the space nor the need for such plants in its collection. It’s all so absurd and very sad.
These box-ticking approaches do not addresses the real problem of mass poaching of plants from habitat by organized criminals but they do enable governments to appear to be doing something. Personally, I believe that the problem lies primarily in the aforementioned countries and regions where there is a high demand for rare plants and where policing CITES is very low down on their list of priorities, coupled with more than a whiff of corruption. Perhaps more support could be given to those countries where the plants grow, and pressure put on their governments to stop the damage they are doing to the environment.
Mexico has been particularly hypocritical in this respect, clamping down on plant collectors (rightly so) while at the same time destroying habitats when building roads and undertaking other infrastructure projects, although they do send the botanists in ahead of the bulldozers apparently (which has led to several new discoveries). In corrupt countries in Central and South America there is no equivalent to the newt or dormouse surveys that UK planning laws require to be carried out, so plants are just bulldozed away.
Of course, whenever rules are created people try to circumvent them. Some EU sellers have started calling CITES I cactus species by other names in order to avoid detection on the assumption that the average customs officer or plant inspector will not be particularly well versed in taxonomy. Deliberately mis-named plants is apparently becoming common now when importing plants from the EU. Does this matter? Well, until 31 December 2020 we could freely buy these species from EU countries and stopping a trade in plants which had, as still has, no effect on habitat plants seems rather pointless.
CITES does not currently prevent the importation of CITES I listed cactus seeds, unless those seeds come from Mexico. I guess it’s too hard to police for one thing and seeds available in the EU are almost always harvested from plants already in cultivation. This can reduce pressure on habitat collecting of plants.
Are UK collectors complicit?
There is still a demand for the rarer species in the UK but habitat-collected plants are no longer imported by the crateload like they were in the 1970s. The BCSS has been slow off the mark to do something about CITES, turning a blind eye to cultivated Appendix-I listed species as recently as the 2016 National Show. Although the BCSS does not tolerate the collection of any plants from habitat (and does, in a modest way, fund conservation projects), there is still a trade in ‘under the counter’ plants at shows and events, particularly among overseas sellers at events such as ELK. If someone wants something, there is always a way of getting it if you know who to speak to (which I don’t, incidentally, nor am I interested in doing so). The policy of the BCSS is pragmatic when it comes to showing of plants, in that so long as you don’t say a plant is habitat collected it doesn’t matter, despite the fact that some cacti you see at plants cannot possibly have been grown from seed outside of their native habitats. There are (thankfully) still a lot of the 1970s imported plant still alive and being passed between collectors as they come up for sale at auctions.
The large caudiciform succulents you see for sale in the UK (and on EU websites) have originally come from habitat and grown on in the Canaries or The Netherlands in order to make them seem home grown, although none are in the CITES appendices fortunately. There is one Instagrammer who openly takes orders for caudiciforms that he digs up in Africa and ships to your door.
What should YOU do?
Only buy plants that you know to have been raised in cultivation, either from seeds or cuttings, from established nurseries and trusted private sellers. It’s as simple as that!