This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Here Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. Summer rain Oaks is a YouTuber who's on a mission to bring people closer to plants and bring plants closer to people. You may have seen her YouTube production called Plant one on Me and her creation of the house Plant Masterclass. She's a podcaster now and her new podcast is called Bad Seeds. It can be heard on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get
podcasts. Summer rain Oaks, good to have you along. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Your Bad Seeds podcast is about the biggest black market we've never heard of. What is that black market? Well,
it's the illegal stuff and smuggling around plants and the plant market. And I think for those of us who love plants, are into indoor and outdoor gardening, we probably have seen some news articles cross our paths at some point about how houseplant market is booming, that millennials and gen z are really into house plants, and in some cases some people think that that has fueled this
rare plant market. Now, the reality is that rare plants have always been out there There's always been people plant hunting for plants, but it has boomed during the pandemic. And this is a huge issue for a lot of different
reasons, and it's a giant wildlife trafficking issue that often gets underreported. So we decided to come together to produced Bad Seeds, which is kind of like allah true kind crime podcast, to raise awareness on this and to tell people some of the almost unbelievable stories I've read about orchid poaching in the Florida Everglades. But that's about the extent of any type of plant poaching I've ever heard of. Is a lot of it in the United States or is it more
so in other countries? It's it's all over, you know. Orchid poaching in Florida, of course, is a big one. Orchids have always been kind of a lustful item for plant people, and there are it's the most diverse plant group that's out there, and they are everywhere. But actually some of the most endangered plants and most poached plants are cacti, psychads, and
conifers. And you know, if you think about cacti, I mean a lot of that is in North and South America, and so, uh, you know, our southwest and in parts of Peou and Chile and everything along those lines have had definitely some poaching. And then of course we think about plant sefta as well, and you can think about it from our own botanic gardens, which are there for the public and the public enjoyment and the public
education and also nurseries. I've had friends and friends of friends who have gotten plants picked off just in nursery environments as well, just by people going through the garden. Yeah, just by people going through the gardens saying I want that plant, and and it's it's crazy, but like you know, plants, even rare plants and plants that are just unique go for thousands of dollars,
tens of thousands of dollars. And now because it's the amount of plants is not as much as the demand for them at this stage, and a lot of these will go to collectors or for people who are just like unknowing that they might actually be purchasing something that is had been maybe plucked from the
environment or unscrupulously harvested. So bad seeds is really just raising awareness for this issue because when you think about like wildlife crime, you think about like maybe elephant ivory or tiger claws or anything along those lines, which you know obviously is a big issue, But plants often get underreported for I think maybe obvious reasons is that sometimes we just take them for granted. Bad Seeds is the podcasts and Summer Raine Oaks is the producer of the podcast. It's about illegal
plant poaching. What branch of government is charged with enforcing this kind of thing, Well, oftentimes it's like you know, the US Fish and Wildlife Service. You know, in some cases there had been especially in agricultural areas, there had been police departments that had been set up specifically for plant thieves because plants was a big part of the economy. That's but that's really few and
far between. I think the challenges is even if we have regulations and enforcement around it, a lot of times in what you'll find out if you listen to the podcast is that is people stealing these plants, which may be worth tens of thousands of dollars on the market or hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases millions of dollars on the market, they're really getting just a slap
on the hand. Comparatively, so you know, very few will get like a jail's time, and most of the time people will get a very light sentence with like volunteer service and then and then they get charged to fine, and then that fine goes back to maybe a botanic garden or the US Fish
and Wildlife Service or anything along those lines. So I think we just have to become more aware of it, especially because like as the economy shrinks and the pandemic happened, there's a lot more people looking for creative ways in order to be able to make funds. And sometimes you can't fault people for trying to put food on the place, but in some cases it's getting way more organized and it's becoming definitely part of like organized crime in the black market.
She hosts a house plant masterclass and YouTube's Plant one on Me, Summer rain Oaks and the Bad Seed podcast heard on the iHeartRadio app and everywhere you get podcasts. What does a driving the demand here? There's got to be a demand somewhere for this type of poaching. Yeah, Well, there's a researcher who's out there named Jared Margoulis, and he actually just wrote a book.
It's coming out in November and he was you know, most if you read the headlines, you would think that it's you know, my era of millennials and zoomers who are fueling it, which may or may not be true. But he went to go to South Korea and a lot of these plants are actually making their way over to Asia, and he found that some of the demand really is from very high end collectors who want very specific plants and will go to all you know means in order to be able to acquire that plant.
You know, back in the Victorian era or like in the eighteen hundreds, wealthy individuals would send out and higher plant collectors and plant hunters to go to some of the most crazy places in the world and in some cases get killed just to harvest plants. And we're kind of seeing that but in a different kind of more modern way, and people are using channels like on telegram
and WhatsApp. You'll find them on places like eBay and fd and you'll find these kind of rare plants just crop up and being sold, not by people who usually own nursery licenses or anything along those lines. So that's part of the awareness building is to help arm folks who are in the houseplant market and who are looking for plants, how to be a bit more mindful on how to get proper plants and not plants that had been perhaps by perchance, plucked
from the environment unscrupulously. Because it's not like you're going to go over to a friend's house. Oh yes, here is my picasso. Oh and here is my very cannibulous, grociferous whatever orchid. I mean, it's not like that that you see that a lot. You would be surprised if you go into if you would go into South Africa, for instance, the homes that have very large psych ads in their backyard are worth millions of dollars, you
know, just because you have that psych had collection. And you know, and look, I look, I find some part of the reason why I want to do this podcast, and you know, I was highlighting some of this stuff on my YouTube channel as well, is that, you know, in a way, I feel partially responsible because I helped usher in this idea
that that plants are wonderful. And you know, I have obviously no control over how people become obsessive or not, but I wanted to do this podcast to help people understand this underreported nature of unethical plant harvesting and the detrimental ramifications that could have on the environment, and how can we be more aware of
what to look out for as plant lovers. But you know, I used to do and I still do, like houseplant on boxings or we'll do houseplant home tours, and people love showing off their indoor and or outdoor plants, and you know the rarer it is. And I actually stopped using even that term in my subject headers because it actually fuels this kind of obsessiveness. And
even though I love plants, I wouldn't consider myself an obsessive. And I think that part of my responsibility now as somebody who loves plants and loves being outdoors as well, is to actually highlight this kind of the dirty side of it and to really give ourselves a chance to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, hey, you know, is this healthy on so many different levels? So Raine Oaks, the podcast is Bad Seeds. You can also
see her YouTube channel plant one on Me. We thank you for bringing this to our attention and the podcast is available everywhere you get podcast, including the I Heart Radio A well. Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation