The study evaluated 1,478 species and determined that 31 percent are endangered due to factors such as the conversion of wilderness areas to farming and ranching, urban development and the harvest of cactus seeds and plants for trade and private collection. Salvador Arias, cactus curator at the National Autonomous University of Mexico's botanical garden, said a little over a third of the country's 700 or so native species are at severe risk for survival and called the situation "alarming." [...] is illegal collection, often by aficionados who take seeds or plants to sell in European countries. Manuel Bibiloni, owner of Huin Cactus, a company in Argentina's Tucuman province that focuses on sustainable trade of cactuses, said the key for protecting them is to ensure that appreciation for the spiny plants happens in the places where they grow. Cactuses have suffered in parts of Argentina from burning of natural grasses for agriculture and livestock and from road construction, she said.