If you drive around Hillcrest, you would almost certainly have seen hawkers selling arum lilies at the traffic lights. Please note that it is illegal to buy, pick or sell any specially-protected plant in KZN without a valid licence from Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife – and that includes our beautiful arums.
Any person who fails to comply shall be guilty of an offence and liable, on conviction, to a fine or imprisonment.
When the buying stops, harvesting will too. Together we can conserve the arum lilies.
Please report illegal harvesting, selling or buying of arum lilies to Esemvelo KZN Wildlife on 031 274 1150. The more people who are aware that our Arum lilies are dying out in the Upper Highway, the better.
This is due to the over harvesting by street hawkers who constantly strip all the blooms from the wetlands and sell the flowers at street corners and robots in and around Hillcrest. The flowers are not being given a chance to seed themselves. Please don’t buy arum lilies from these vendors.
Springside Nature Reserve is one of the major targets for Arum theft.
An alternate report number is Metro Police – 031 767 1222.