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| Winter 2001 Director's Page  Re-thinking Forest Preservation Roadless Area Conservation Tax Incentives for Conservation League of Conservation Voters Report Total Maximum Daily Loads Watershed Update |
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In 1586, European merchants landed in a place they had named Virginia, loaded their ships with wild sassafras root (Sassafras albidum) and sailed toward England. Since Europeans had first set foot in North America, they had been impressed by the vast array of unknown medicinal plants growing wild in the eastern woodlands. These new medicines were to revolutionize the traditional healing practices of many European countries, where native herb populations had already been depleted for hundreds of years. By 1603, a group of merchants in Bristol sent a sassafras collecting expedition to Virginia for more of this exciting new plant. Jamestown colonialists were mandated to produce one hundred pounds of sassafras per year. Sassafras was touted as a cure for everything from tooth aches to fevers. As a culinary spice, its fragrant leaves and bark were used as a substitute for cinnamon. In London, sassafras tea served with milk and sugar was the rage in coffee houses.1 It seemed as though there were endless supplies of plants available for the taking. Herbs collected from the wild—such as lady’s slipper (Cypripedium spp.), birthroot (Trillium erectum), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and golden seal (Hydrastis canadensis)—were in great demand in European markets. Wild medicinal plants were exported by the ton for the next 300 years. When American Indians harvested herbs as medicines, they did so with great ceremony. Their healing traditions recognized a distinct connection between the health of the land where the plants were collected and the healing powers of the plants themselves. Those plants especially used for their roots were traditionally harvested only in the autumn, when ripe berries can be replanted in the hole that remains from digging the root. Large stands were maintained by only taking a few of the older plants, leaving younger plants to grow and mature. Unfortunately, none of this reverence guided Europeans’ collecting of plants for profit. By the early 1900’s, over harvesting had taken its toll on North American plants. Golden seal—once described as growing in masses that covered acres of ground—became scarce. There were attempts to cultivate it, but soon it became evident to would-be herb farmers that the growing conditions golden seal required (deep woodland shade and rich humus soil) were almost impossible to recreate. Too late, they discovered that golden seal does poorly outside its native range—the eastern hardwood forests.2
The root of Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) has been collected for centuries and used as a tonic, laxative, astringent and stimulant. Since the late 1960’s, the use of herbal medicines has steadily increased. In the United States, demand for herbal products represents the fastest growing segment of pharmacy sales. Consumers spent over $2 billion on herbs in 1995, an amount that by the end of 2000 is projected to be over $5 billion. Although this is good news for those of us who believe that herbs are safe and effective medicines, it is bad news for the severely threatened wild medicinal plants struggling for survival in their native habitats. Today, over 75% of the wild medicinal plants harvested for commercial markets come from the Southern Appalachian mountain range.4 Many native plants are in danger of disappearing altogether. In the Southeast, golden seal is considered endangered (i.e., in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range) in Georgia and North Carolina. It is imperiled (between 6 and 20 occurrences in the entire state) in Alabama, and threatened (likely to become endangered) in Tennessee. It is estimated that commercial harvesters are taking roughly 45.4 million to 68.1 million golden seal plants out of wild habitats each year.5 The impact of this ecological disruption cannot be overestimated, although until recently it has been overlooked. Most forest policy discussions are still focused on the importance of maintaining “working forests,” a term that generally refers to timber harvesting. What we see, and often have a strong emotional response to, is the wholesale destruction of “woodlands.” What is more difficult to see, and almost impossible to gauge in terms of future impact, is the loss of medicinal plants. At a time when there is much public hand-wringing over the loss of plant populations that might contain cures for many human diseases from the Amazonian rain forest, we would do well to look in our own backyards—the most ecologically diverse temperate rainforest in the world. Although it has been almost 500 years since Europeans first regarded the forests of North America as a source of financial profit, somehow these plants manage to survive. Here in the Southern Appalachians, a wide range of plants with incredible healing properties that are only beginning to be understood, struggle on. However, every day the range where these plants can be found is shrinking. At the eleventh hour, we are beginning to realize the preciousness of what we are stewarding: a medicinally complex rain forest equal to those in the Amazon basin. These medicinal plants and their survival are directly linked to our own. Pharmaceutical drugs don’t, in fact, offer the miracle cures we thought they did. At least 70 percent of infections contracted in hospitals are resistant to at least one antibiotic, according to the Centers for Disease Control—a realization that has horrifying implications.6 The theories behind most pharmaceutical use are extremely short sighted, and in many ways similar to some of the strategies used in forest management. Whenever we see a living being or forest as a collection of parts, some of which are useful and some of which are expendable, we begin to disrupt the integrity of the whole. There is an underlying balance to nature’s way of maintaining itself that, despite the best scientific efforts, is unknowable. In our ignorance, humility is probably our best strategy. We stand at a crucial point in our relationship with our native forests: the intersection of our consumption patterns and our desire to restore our understanding of sustainable ways of living. We still have an unconscious tendency to travel along the same paths as the first colonialists who, without restraint, scoured the woods of North America for wild “products” they could ship to eager consumers in other world markets. We must decide carefully which direction we will take from here. We have inherited a planet abundant with healing, and would be foolish to turn our backs on our native forest apothecary. Through enlightened self-interest, we can shape increasing demand for medicinal herbs into trends that promote a sustainable relationship with surrounding forests, woodlands and even the weeds in our backyards. On a personal level, each of us can allow our consciousness, our own wildness—not just our coughs and colds—to be restored and healed through our newfound respect for native medicinal plants. 1Rupp, Rebbeca. Red Oaks and Black Birches: The Science and
Lore of Trees. Pownal, Vermont: Story Communications, 1990, pp. 162-165.
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