Seeds of change
We travelled to one of the driest places on earth to save highly threatened cacti
Our conservationists have just returned after spending days under the blistering sun in Chile’s hyper-arid Atacama Desert, where they painstakingly harvested Copiapoa cacti seeds for preservation.
Many of these species are in real danger of extinction due to climate change, industrial and urban development projects, plant poaching and illegal off-roading.
The team identified and harvested several never before included in a seed bank.
Paul Bamford, regional field programme senior manager for Latin America, and Richard Hewitt, team manager for the Chester Zoo plant nursery, worked alongside Cactus Lagarto Nursery and the INIA Intihuasi Seedbank, where the seeds are now housed.
We drove 13 hours to reach the desert and were up from dawn ‘til dusk each day working our way from one population of cacti to the next. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on earth, so it was hot and dusty, but the work was worthwhile.
Paul Bamford, Regional Field Programme Senior Manager for Latin America
We also visited the Chilean government’s Cactus Rescue Centre, where hundreds of recovered Copiapoa cacti are housed, including those seized during a major international cactus trafficking case in 2020.
Following a five-year operation, during which a high-profile cactus poacher from Italy was successfully prosecuted, more than 800 plants were returned to Chile. This may be the first time stolen plants were repatriated at this scale following illegal removal from their habitats. The location of the Rescue Centre cannot be shared for security reasons.
Out in the desert, we removed the seeds from wild Copiapoa using tweezers, logged location coordinates, photographed the parent plant beside bagged and labelled seed samples, and brought them to a lab to be sorted, cleaned, dried and frozen. 
Copiapoa seeds do not travel far from the parent plants, and the cacti grow very slowly. This means individual species are often restricted to a small area, making them vulnerable to damage and slow to recover.
Being out in the field was amazing, but we saw evidence of illegal constructions, 4x4 tire tracks going through their habitats – it is easy for illegal drivers to destroy a whole cactus colony – and there were gaps where poached plants were uprooted and carried away.
Paul Bamford, Regional Field Programme Senior Manager for Latin America
Back at the zoo, we house the National Collection of Copiapoa, a registered group of plants kept for conservation purposes.
We have looked after these species for over 20 years and share information the threats faced by cacti through our Plant Project area, which Richard Hewitt oversees.
It was important to see for myself the cacti habitats in the Atacama Desert and the challenges they face to survive. Having the opportunity to collect seeds of Copiapoa with other plant conservations was fantastic, as is knowing that the seeds we collected are now secured at INIA Intihuasi Seed Bank.
Richard Hewitt, Team Manager for the Chester Zoo plant nursery
