A shift from plant poaching to mass seed harvesting has triggered alarm in the Western Cape, with more than one million seeds illegally stripped from the province in just five months.
Figures revealed in a recent parliamentary reply show that between October 2025 and February 2026, a total of 1 064 032 seeds and 8 642 indigenous plants were recorded as illegally harvested or poached, pointing to what officials describe as an evolving and increasingly sophisticated criminal trade…