Orchid poachers

by Felicity Egerton for Tanzania's high life, 21 February 2009

While filming spectacular orchids in the high altitude meadows of Tanzania’s Kitulo National Park, programme maker Felicity Egerton comes across a little known trade in wildlife.

Kitulo's chief park warden, Mr Mwakilema, is fighting against poaching, not of wild animals as in other national parks, but of orchid tubers taken for food.

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Tanzania's rare orchids are also a delicacy for some.

Kitulo is the first National Park in Africa to have been created to protect plants rather than animals. Known as the 'Garden of God’ and the 'Serengeti of Flowers', the park is home to more than 40 species of orchid.

Mr Mwakilema is doing what he can to protect enough orchids so that the area will recover, once the fashion for eating the tubers dies out. But a 5g tuber takes about five years to grow and once harvested the plant is destroyed.

Many thousands of miles away another species has also become a popular food. Read Hunt for the world's largest land crab to find out how some crabs have avoided the pot.