permaculture

[Victor Guest <vic@daena.eepo.com.au>]

Sender: ag-impact@freedom.mtn.org
From: "Peter Buesseler" <pbuessel@prtel.com>
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Edited 
Vic
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The increasing popularity of Echinacea has brought with it some problems for
conserving this plant in its native habitat. Regrettably, poaching is
becoming a serious problem in several prairie states.  Here are a couple
articles you can read about this issue.
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Peter Buesseler,  State Prairie Biologist
MN DNR Scientific and Natural Areas Program
1221 E. Fir Ave., Fergus Falls, MN 56537
218/739-7497,  218/739-7601 (fax)
Great Plains Partnership <www.greatplains.org>
Red River Basin Information Network <www.eerc.und.nodak.edu/rrbin/>

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Native Plants
Coneflowers' Popularity: Prescription for Trouble?
National Wildlife Federation, June/July 1997

http://www.nwf.org/nwf/natlwild/1997/plantjj7.html

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>From All Outdoors, May 8, 1998, Missouri Dept of Conservation.
News contact: Jim Low, Jefferson City, Missouri, (573) 751-4115
Available via Internet at: http://www.conservation.state.mo.us/news/out

Plant poaching plagues Missouri's wild places
Illegal digging of wild plants for profit and for personal use is
devastating some of Missouri's most beautiful places.

The increase in illegal plant digging seems to be driven by the growing
popularity of "natural" medicines. The root of the pale purple coneflower,
also known by the name "Echinacea," is a popular health product on the
shelves of nutrition stores. It is said to help prevent or cure colds by
increasing the number of white blood cells. Root diggers also take
goldenseal, ginseng, Virginia snake root and American feverfew.

A Missouri company that buys herbs nationwide did $14 million worth of
business in 1996. However, when it comes to stealing plants, individual
collectors are responsible for the most part.
The Conservation Department encourages the public to report plant poachers
by calling the Operation Game Thief/Forest Arson toll-free hot line,
1-800-392-1111, or the local conservation agent.

- Jim Auckley -

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Medicinal herbFAQ - contents page
All you ever wanted to know - and ask on a newsgroup - more often than once
a month - about medicinal herbs. A FAQ for alt.folklore.herbs and the
medicinal herblist.
Version 1.33, last updated 21Aug98.
http://sunsite.unc.edu/herbmed/mediher2.html#c2_1_8_1

2.1.8.1 Echinacea - poaching and extinction
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Thread on the phytopharmacognosy list:

> Over 90% of all Echinacea material in the U.S. and Europe comes from
cultivated species. There is very little wild harvested ech. on the market.
The claim that the use of ech. preparations contributes to the extinction of
this plant species is nonsense. Such claims may apply to other medicinal
plants but not to the easy to cultivate Ech. spp..

>From P. Mick Richardson <richards@mobot.org>, to above:

Disappearance of the plant in the wild may be nonsense to you but it is
reality to those of us who live in areas where the plant is native. Several
points. The plant is easy to grow in cultivation but if you have no land on
which to grow it you can get ready cash by collecting it in the wild. Even
if 90% comes from cultivated sources, the remaining 10% is still a massive
amount in relation to the ever decreasing number of plants in the wild,
especially when consumption rises each year and the 10% translates into an
ever increasing number of plants to be sought.

After receiving your message, I sought out a local person who collects seeds
of Echinacea from wild plants in Missouri for cultivation of the plant. He
confirmed my suspicions that the plant is becoming non-existent in many
parts of Missouri as local populations are exterminated. So the nonsense is
in fact reality to the people who see the plants. I suggest greater
cultivation of the plant would decrease the demand for wild-harvested
material. After all, no-one would be killing rhinos and elephants for sale
if there was not a market for them. Let's stop before Echinacea becomes a
great auk or a passenger pigeon example for textbooks. Sorry to ramble on,
but extinction is for ever and it would be shameful for herbalists to
contribute to it.

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.. and more in the same thread:

From: P. Mick Richardson <richards@mobot.org>:

It is illegal to collect Echinacea unless it is on your own property in
Missouri. However, if someone offers cash for echinacea plants, then the
demand will be met by poaching. Although on a lesser scale, it is no
different to the situation with rhino horm and elephant ivory. If there is a
cash market, people will provide the product. I could give descriptions of
the nationalities of the buyers but this is probably unnecessary. The plants
end up in Europe, presumably the site of greatest demand.

Hopefully, there will soon be enough Echinacea in cultivation that the price
will fall and this may remove the demand for wild-collected plants. Until
then, if you encourage the use of Echinacea, you endanger the plants growing
wild in Missouri. Admittedly Echinacea is being poached on a lesser scale
than Panax or Hydrastis, but it is still disappearing. Let's aim for
complete domestication. It works for Ginkgo, which is a cultivated cash crop
in the U.S.A. now.