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RHS Journals

The Garden
April 2000

The moral issues raised by the sale of plants gathered from the wild affect gardeners, scientists and the RHS, argues Alasdair Morrison

Most people nowadays are aware that the world's wildlife is more or less everywhere under threat. This awareness has rightly led to a heightened sensitivity about the collection and the use of plants from the wild, and it is certainly something to which the Royal Horticultural Society and its Members should pay attention.

But some reactions have been exaggerated and have been based on too simple a view of what is involved. I have heard it suggested that the Society should take a campaigning part in efforts to suppress all collection of plants from the wild. In particular it has been said that the Society needs to tighten its policies on the use of wild plants in its shows and on the advertisements which it carries in its publications. As a Member, I hope the RHS treats such suggestions with caution.

Some preliminary disclaimers may be wise. I would like to make it clear that I share fully the spiritual unease which many feel about what we are all doing to the world environment. The threat to the world's plants is real, and I believe that people who break laws designed to protect plant populations should be stopped and punished. But while my own interest in plants is amateur, my area of professional specialisation has been in world politics and in the politics of the world economy in particular. It tells me that a sense of reality has to be maintained even - or perhaps especially - when one is talking about saving the planet.

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