Orchid poaching and the media in Nepal

Orchid poaching is one of the major threats of loss of orchids in the Nepal Himalaya. Orchids are highly used for medicinal value Nepal, India and China. According to Acharya and Rokaya (2010), 82 species of orchids are used for medicinal purpose in Nepal. However, the consumption of orchids for medicinal use is very high in China and India and Nepal harbors big number of orchids in its diverse environmental condition. Because of high numbers in Nepal, these CITES plants are smuggled to India and China. Nepal police many times raided those smugglers but the scenario is not changed yet. 

Few days back, some smugglers were caught by Nepal police in collaboration with staffs of Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP) in Jomsom. They captured 5 tons of dried orchids loaded in three trucks. The news was in published in a national news paper, Kantipur daily but some of the information provided in the news is wrong. First, the number of orchids found in Nepal is about 411 (this is list I compiled from different sources. Some sources mentioned numbers higher than this but there are some synonyms used in those lists). But, the reporter of the news mentioned the number of orchids found in Nepal is just 175. So, the national media should be aware of the information. There is still lack of reporters who are aware of those scientific facts. This type of mistakes are very frequent in national media. Secondly, the picture in the news is not the orchid. There is orchid on the branch of a tree but the plant in focus is not an orchid. (News source: Kantipur daily, 23.01.2012)