Understanding the environmental and social risks from the international trade in ornamental plants

The multibillion dollar ornamental plant trade benefits economies worldwide, but shifting and rapidly expanding globalized supply chains have exacerbated complex environmental, sustainability, and biosecurity risks. We review the environmental and social risks of this international trade, complementing it with analyses of illegal trade seizures and plant contaminant interception data from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. We show global increases in ornamental plant trade, with supply expansions in East Africa and South America, and highlight risks and impacts including biodiversity loss, aquifer depletion, pollution, undermined access and benefit sharing, and food security. Despite risk mitigation efforts, the interception data showed considerable volumes of contaminants in ornamental plant shipments, but taxonomic identification was not always possible, highlighting uncertainties in assessing biosecurity risks. With high-volume and fast-moving transit of ornamental plants around the world, it is essential that production standards are improved and that data on specific risks from trade are collected and shared to allow for mitigation.