In the 19th century, wealthy European collectors dispatched orchid hunters to pillage tropical forests with ruthless efficiency. These botanical mercenaries didn’t see pristine ecosystems but rather living gold mines.

Benedict Roezl, who lost an arm yet collected over 800,000 orchids, exemplified this single-minded exploitation. Collectors frequently destroyed habitats after extraction to eliminate competition, burning forests to maintain monopolies on rare species.

Indigenous peoples were systematically exploited. Their botanical knowledge was appropriated without credit or compensation, while imperial powers granted collection rights over lands they never owned. Colonial governments actively encouraged this exploitation,
viewing it as their “civilizing mission” to extract resources from territories they considered “undeveloped.”
In this colonial view, nature existed not for preservation but for possession, a resource awaiting European white men ownership.