[MPWG] Fragile harvest, fragile bonds (newspaper article on matsutake harvest-Part 1)

[Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov]

An article brought to my attention by another listserve member - I'll post
it to you all for your comtemplation.  Stay tuned for Part 2, which will
follow.

Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist - Division of Scientific Authority
Chair - Plant Conservation Alliance - Medicinal Plant Working Group
US Fish & Wildlife Service
4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 750
Arlington, VA  22203
703-358-1708 x1753
FAX: 703-358-2276
Working for the conservation and sustainable use of our green natural
resources.
<www.nps.gov/plants/medicinal>

----- Forwarded by Patricia De Angelis/ARL/R9/FWS/DOI on 09/28/2004 04:17
PM -----

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Fragile harvest, fragile bonds

Migrants and others who pick matsutake mushrooms face pressure from global
markets, Forest Service logging and changing demographics
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Oregonian (newspaper)

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/109611402971980.xml


MATTHEW PREUSCH

CRESCENT LAKE It's evening at the mushroom camp off rural Oregon 58, and
pickers trail in from the cold to gather around the rusty woodstove in
Pang's noodle house and sip

Conversation, as always, centers on the price per pound for the pickers'
matsutake mushrooms. Tonight prices were down, and the men are grim.

"Some years I make $1,000 a day," laments Johnny Nop, 36, a veteran picker.
"Now I'm making $25 a day."

It's a common refrain in this makeshift longhouse of pine boles and blue
plastic tarps that serves as casino, restaurant and community hall for
hundreds of pickers who live in the dusty U.S. Forest Service campground.

This backwoods, nomadic culture is under pressure from forces largely
outside its control. Shifting global markets, Forest Service logging and
changing demographics are threatening to push the already marginalized
society of pickers over the edge, experts say.

"If the prices don't get better and if more harvesting areas are lost, I
think the economic and the social parts of this are very precarious," said
Katie Bagby of Forest Community Research, a Taylorsville, Calif., group
that monitors the Crescent Lake mushroom scene.

Camps such as this are a part of a fall rite in Central Oregon as the
pickers, mostly Southeast Asian immigrants, arrive in search of the
American matsutake mushroom as it pushes through the forest floor.

The delicate white mushrooms thrive on the roots of pine and fir trees
growing in the volcanic soil of the Deschutes and Fremont-Winema national
forests. Their harvest feeds the Japanese markets, where the matsutake is
seen not only as a delicacy but also as a ceremonial gift and symbol of
virility. Top-grade matsutakes sell for $55 a pound at Portland specialty
groceries.

"Crescent Lake is like the breadbasket of all mushroom harvest places for
matsutakes in the United States," said Denise Smith, director of the
Alliance for Forest Workers and Harvesters, which advocates fair treatment
of nontimber forest laborers by land management agencies.

Some pickers are full-time migrants, following the mushroom seasons all
over the West: black morels in Montana in spring; chanterelles on the coast
in fall. Others take leave from their part-time jobs as mechanics and
laborers in places like Sacramento or Seattle to seek the camaraderie of
the camps, each a rough facsimile of the rural, communal lifestyle many
left behind for the promise of America.

Matsutakes represent just one product in a nontimber forest economy valued
domestically at $5 billion a year, Smith said. In places such as the
Crescent Lake area, nontraditional forest products such as berries or
decorative plants are worth more than the trees.

Japan imported $9.5 million worth of matsutakes, or about 275 metric tons,
from the Northwest in 1997, the last year for which figures are available,
said Sue Alexander, a Forest Service researcher who has studied the
matsutake economy.

Mushroom prices in flux

There was a brief period in the 1990s when pickers were paid hundreds of
dollars a pound for their "matsies." However, at the camp, the price was
about $8 a pound for the best mushrooms. Some pickers didn't even bother to
sell.

"Prices are still good for matsutake. They're still obviously good enough
to get people out there and get them picking," Alexander said. "They're
just not crazy like they used to be."

The number of matsutake permits sold is on the decline. The Forest Service
sold about $366,000 worth of permits in 1997 at the Chemult and Crescent
ranger districts. That compares with about $120,000 last year.

Prices at mushroom buying stations in Crescent Lake or Chemult are tied
directly to the auction markets in Japan, said John Nishibate, manager at
Grand Hale Fisheries, a Vancouver exporter of matsutakes. "Prices change
hourly, daily or probably every 15 minutes," he said.

The global matsutake market has been in flux in recent years, affecting the
income of pickers here. North Korea, Tibet and even northern Africa have
been flooding the Japanese market with a cheap supply of matsutakes, Smith
said.

"If there is a good harvest in China, if there is a good harvest in Korea,
then our prices are going to be low," she said.

Pickers' expenses

At the same time, the pickers' expenses haven't changed much. A seasonal
permit issued by the Forest Service costs $200, the same as in 1997.
Camping fees, gas and groceries come on top of that.

"The permit cost money, the camp cost money, but the mushroom is cheap,"
said Nop, the veteran picker. "What are we going to do?"

Nop said he has eight children to support in Portland, and if prices stay
low, he'll have to go to Alaska. What he'll do there is anyone's guess, he
said.

But if Nop and other Southeast Asian pickers move on, someone else will
probably move in.

The demographics of mushroom pickers are changing. Recent years have seen a
larger number of Latinos heading into the woods in search of mushrooms
following the apple season in the Yakima and Columbia valleys, said
Ranachith "Ronnie" Yimsut, a Cambodian immigrant who works with the U.S.
Forest Service in Bend and visits the camp in his free time.

"They are pretty good pickers, and they will displace a lot of Southeast
Asian pickers," he said.

The mushrooms themselves also may be in jeopardy.

Logging looms

The Forest Service is planning several thinning projects in the forests
around Crescent Lake, upsetting pickers, who are protective of what they
consider their mushroom plots. When harvesting, they take care not to
disturb the underlying rootlike mycelium from which new harvests grow.

Industrial logging can set back production for years by disturbing the
topsoil.

Vantha Savorn, Nop's picking partner and best friend, pointed to a map
posted at the camp.

"All this right here is going to be logged and thinned," he said. "These
are all the mushroom areas, and they are going to cut all of it."

But Chris Mickle, environmental coordinator for the Crescent Ranger
District of the Deschutes National Forest, said the agency is working to
get the pickers' input about areas to tread lightly or avoid.

"I know some of them feel it's not enough, but we have been putting quite a
bit of energy in trying to collaborate with those folks," Mickle said.

There are some barriers to communication, he said. For one, about five
languages are spoken in the camp, and the Forest Service is short on
translators. Also, many pickers don't want to reveal the location of their
prized mushroom patches.

Adding to that is the sense of distrust many pickers feel for anyone in
uniform.

Many pickers have troubled pasts, Yimsut said. Some fled the Cambodian
killing fields or the civil unrest that followed the U.S. withdrawal from
Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War. Many never joined mainstream American
society in any meaningful way.

"They have fallen trough the cracks of Western society," he said. "They are
underemployed; they are marginalized people, all of them."

Matthew Preusch: 541-382-2006; preusch at bendbroadband.com