摘要：Wild harvesting has taken place over millennia in Africa. However urbanization and cash economies haveeffectively altered harvesting from being cultural, traditional, and subsistence activities that are part of a rural norm, to being asubculture of commonly illicit activities located primarily within the urban, cash-based, informal economy. This paper focuseson Cape Town, South Africa where high levels of poverty and extensive population growth have led to a rapidly growing informalindustry based on the cultural, subsistence, and entrepreneurial harvesting and consumption of products obtained from the localnatural environment. Through a process of literature reviews, database analysis, and key informant interviews, a compendiumof harvested species was developed, illustrating the breadth of illicit harvesting of products from nature reserves, public openspace, and other commonage within the City. The compendium records 448 locally occurring species (198 animals and 250plants) that are extracted for medicinal, energy, ornamental, sustenance, nursery, and other uses. The sustainability of harvestingis questionable; nearly 70% of all harvested flora and 100% of all collected fauna are either killed or reproductively harmedthrough the harvesting processes. Furthermore, for the 183 indigenous flora species currently recorded on the InternationalUnion for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, 28% (51) hold assessments ranging from Declining through to CriticallyEndangered. With respect to the more poorly assessed fauna (46 spp.), approximately 24% (11) have Declining or Threatenedstatus
