The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation is a target-oriented plant conservation strategy. Among the targets was a call for 75% of threatened taxa to be included in ex situ collections and 20% to be available for recovery and reintroduction programs. However, the percentage of threatened taxa worldwide subject to reintroduction is still far less than this target. China is a recognized center of plant diversity globally. An estimated 11% of Chinese plants were threatened with extinction. The use of conservation translocation is relatively new in China, but quickly gaining popularity. In this chapter, we aimed to understand the extent of conservation translocation of Chinese orchids, a group of Chinese plants which were threatened with disproportionally high numbers, and the motivations behind these actions. We found that a total of 43 Chinese orchid species of 21 genera had been subject to conservation translocation and a total of 55 cases of translocations were recorded. Stakeholders who carried out these orchid restoration cases were motivated differently but could be grouped into the following three types. They were (1) rescue action by a nature reserve, (2) research experiments by research institutes and botanical gardens, and (3) sustainable use reintroduction by a private company. In the future, using semi-wild cultivation of high-value orchid species as a leverage to carry out species and forest restoration should be strongly encouraged. Considering the high demand for certain orchids, especially the persisting demand for wild-sourced plants, the semi-wild cultivation may be able to motivate more stakeholders to buy in the conservation of the species and their associated ecosystem, in China and other developing countries with strong plant use traditions.
