Plant poaching has been the final straw for some. Conservationists say there’s no time to lose, as they consider an ecological triage for the most at-risk species here. "The most important thing we can do is to reduce other threats on these species, to make sure that the pressure of land transformation, for agriculture, for mining, overgrazing, and, of course, succulent plant poaching, all of these disrupt those systems and really reduce the resilience and the opportunities they have to adapt on their own. We can take some very active conservation approaches." At least two species of endemic succulents are now regarded as extinct in the wild - Lithops herrei and Cyanella marlothii - mostly pushed over the brink by poaching. The only remaining known specimens are in a SANParks botanical garden in the Richtersveld.