[medit-plants] Re: Looters strip Greek mountains of wild tea

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I have been involved in the collection of lichen and fungi from the wild for experiments in dyeing. Much of this was gratuitous and probably vandalism in the early years. Over time this practise has evolved, around here at least, into more of a harvest of material that we have identified as reproducing itself annually. We have agreed on boundaries and I believe most of the long term practitioners abide by them. We do have a problem in that, as plant dyes come in and out of fashion, new people enter the field and gather without any knowledge or self-imposed restrictions. Once committed to the practise of plant dyeing, harvesters become practical conservationists, protecting a resource they use. But those of us who have been here a long time feel we have to keep inventing the wheel and that the knowledge we have gained is going to be lost as we retreat into nursing homes and the like. We feel that we are caught between two stances – ‘don’t touch’, and ‘take what you want’. The hard path – practical knowledge – doesn’t seem to have a home in the discourses of the day. Dyers are a small group and so it is not a subject that is going to make the television news. They are also a group that is dispersed so they are hard to collect and inform. The books that are published on the subject usually urge caution when collecting, but they don’t convey the ethics that arise out of detailed knowledge of the environment.

The point is that we have two knowledge bases here – environment and dyeing – that aren’t communicating well. I suspect that dyers are similar to collectors of medicinal plants and wild food enthusiasts and others who seem to have ‘discovered’ sets of natural resources they think of as ‘free’. Each of these groups has a knowledge base they want to share and preserve but there doesn’t seem to be a way of making knowledge of environmental protection an essential and fundamental part of this knowledge that they want to pass on. Some traditional societies managed with the notion of taboo, but that won’t stop the modern collector who thinks they have found the cure for death or the taste sensation to beat them all.

Sorry for the rant but it is the loss of knowledge that I feel is the key to protection of places and I don’t really see a solution to it. People want to do things, not to know things.

Margaret Healey

Agree!
What's the cure for 'the refugee problem'? Peace.
What's the cure for the sort of damage described? The ability to make a living.
There are those who vandalise the environment for fun and profit, but they would be the ones who could put a spin on it an inform us that it is 'progress'. This tale reeks of desperation.

Margaret Healey

-----Original Message-----
From: m*@freelists.org [m*@freelists.org] On Behalf Of Silke Bernau (Redacted sender "silke.bernau" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, 7 July 2017 6:34 PM
To: m*@freelists.org
Subject: [medit-plants] Re: Looters strip Greek mountains of wild tea

I have really mixed feelings about this, as always when conservation of flora and fauna conflicts with people trying to make a living. On the one hand, I want rare plants and animals, and endangered ecosystems, to be protected, but people also have a need (indeed a right) to be able to make a living.


The people at the bottom are almost always desperately poor and trying to support their families -- yes, in this case illegally, but I imagine that they have precious few alternatives. This is why they have to run the risks and why they are the ones who get arrested, go to prison, receive fines: they are powerless targets.


Once they have done illegal deed, the herbs enter the official, legitimate trade with bigger profits and bigger players who never get punished. Finally, the herbs grace the shelves of health-food shops catering to the demand of eco-conscious and  healthy-living customers. So it seems pretty harsh to call a poor family trying to earn some income 'looters' -- they are the least element in a long chain of demand.


It seems clearer to me every day that conservation will only work if people around it are allowed to have decent lives.

Just my 2 cents, apologies if this was not the time or place for an off-topic rant...


S.


________________________________
From: Sean A. O'Hara <s*@gimcw.org>
To: "m*@freelists.org" <m*@freelists.org>
Sent: Thursday, 6 July 2017, 17:01
Subject: [medit-plants] Looters strip Greek mountains of wild tea



http://www.seattletimes.com/business/looters-strip-greek-mountains-of-wild-tea-rare-plants/?utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=Referral&utm_campaign=RSS_all
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Seán O.
https://seanaohara.wordpress.com/