Where Have All the Flowers Gone? - herbal supplements threaten some herb species

Vegetarian Times, Sept, 1999 by Norine Dworkin

Herbs are good for us, but we may not be good for them. Activist Tim Blakley explains why the herbal supplement boom is threatening some species with extinction--and tells what he's doing about it

Wander through any natural products store, pharmacy or supermarket and you'll see shelves lined with every herbal product imaginable: teas, capsules, tinctures, ointments, essential oils, homeopathic remedies, bath items and cosmetics. Even snack foods have been given a dash of herbs.

Consumers who couldn't even pronounce echinacea five years ago are now clamoring for the latest herbal panacea. In 1997, herbal supplement sales topped $5 billion in the United States, and annual growth has been hitting 20 percent. The downside of this run on nature's pharmacy is that it is threatening to leave the woodlands bare. Worldwide, one in eight plants is in danger of vanishing, according to a joint survey conducted by the World Conservation Union, the Smithsonian Institutes, the World Wildlife Fund and others.

Here in the United States, 20 percent of our 16,000 native plants are at risk--and some are within a few years of being picked to extinction. The best solution, says Tim Blakley, herbalist and author of Medicinal Herbs in the Garden, Field & Marketplace (San Juan Naturals, 1999), is to stop gathering these herbs in the wild, a practice known as wildcrafting, and start growing them for commercial sale.

In the spring of 1998, Blakley helped establish the nonprofit National Center for the Preservation of Medicinal Herbs (NCPMH), a 68-acre preserve in Rutland, Ohio, underwritten by Frontier Natural Products Co-op, a Boulder-based maker of organic herbal products. With input from key members of the herb industry, the Center staff developed a list of 14 "critical to cultivate" herbs (see "Going, going, gone"). NCPMH's mission is to develop effective cultivation methods for these herbs and to educate commercial growers about planting them. Blakley, now the land manager for NCPMH, talked with health writer Norine Dworkin about the project.

ND: Is the overharvesting of herbs a new problem?

TB: Overharvesting really didn't reach critical levels until the '90s, when there was a large increase in herb consumption both here and abroad. The one exception is American ginseng. We haven't been able to get a significant supply of ginseng from the wild in the last three decades. We now have cultivated supplies, but the wild ginseng is disappearing.

Apart from ginseng, goldenseal is one of the most overharvested herbs. More than 60 million goldenseal plants are picked each year without being replaced. Right now, it's considered endangered or threatened throughout most of its range [where it occurs naturally]. We first reached the critical stage with goldenseal around 1994 or '95. Prices went up suddenly--it now retails for $200 to $300 per pound--and supply became an issue. Historically this happened with goldenseal several times dating back to the 1880s. In those cases, as price rose, the demand fell. That hasn't happened in the 1990s.

ND: Why are supplies of our herbs dwindling so quickly?

TB: Americans' herb consumption has grown at an average rate of 20 percent each year, and it has reached the point where wildcrafting of some herbs is no longer sustainable. If we do not cultivate certain herbs, they simply will not be available in the future.

It only takes one media event to totally change the situation. After a TV show on St. John's wort, it went from not even being in the top 50 in sales to being the number two best-selling herb in the United States. [Echinacea is number one.] St. John's wort is easy to cultivate, so we're not concerned. But if a show were done on, say, black cohosh, sales would go up tremendously and there is not a sustainable wild supply to meet the demand. We are devoting a significant amount of research energy to black cohosh to learn how to grow it, and we are encouraging growers to plant it. Next to goldenseal, it's our herb of primary importance.

Indiscriminate use of herbs is also contributing to the problem. About 10 percent of people who use goldenseal do so to mask results of a drug test. It doesn't work that way, but there's a misconception that it does. People also think goldenseal is an immune stimulant like echinacea. It has many uses, including treating mucous membrane infections, but it doesn't work as an immune stimulant. And then there are medicinal herbs in vinegars, salad dressings, hair-care products, potato chips, ice cream. That's a waste of good-quality herb. You're not getting enough of a medicinal dose in the amounts being used.

ND: Who's responsible for wildcrafting these herbs?

TB: Mainly very poor people. Many are unemployed or underemployed. Traditionally, they were trappers or hunters, but few pickers do that anymore. It's hard to tell how many are out there, but we think they number in the thousands. Wildcrafters tend to pick on private lands in the East and public lands in the West.