[MPWG] NTFP Newsletter - April 05

Mon Apr 18 12:36:54 CDT 2005

This month's National Network of Forest Practitioners (NNFP) - Non-Timber
Forest Product (NTFP) News contains several articles concerning medicinal
plants...

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 04/18/2005 01:33
PM -----

Non-timber Forest Product News
www.nnfp.org
Digest Issue 6
April 16, 2005
********************************************************************
Editor Penny Frazier,
penny at pinenut.com

 Contents:

I.News Review
    Non-timber forest products conference by 1st Nations
    Native Seed Company
    Regulating the wild mushroom
    US Wild Mushroom Exports and Impacts (MUSHROOM)
    Ginseng: Herb with ties to area prized as a folk remedy
    Legislation Aims to Regulate Ginseng Harvest
    Undocumented Immigrants Recruited to Grow Marijuana in National Park
    Palm Sunday and NTFPs
    Native Plant News
    Wild Food News

II. Announcements and Publications

 HEADLINE - Summary

Non-timber forest products conference by 1st Nations

Web Posted: 3/30/2005 7:27:36 PM
 Mushrooms, berries and medicine are all part of a two day conference going
on at the Travelodge hotel. The conference, put on by the Ontario
Aboriginal
Forestry Coalition and the Ontario Metis Aboriginal Association is looking
at the management of Non-Timber Forest Products in First Nation areas.
http://www.tbsource.com/Localnews/index.asp?cid=74008

CLOVIS, N.M. - Brothers Blake and Tye Curtis, Cherokee, have taken the
small
grass seed company started by their father in 1956 and turned it into a
multi-million dollar organization. They co-own Curtis & Curtis Inc. which
now deals exclusively in native grasses. The Western United States is their
main territory
Because wild plants tend to be heartier than cultivated native plants,
there
is a significant movement to use native products collected in the wild for
planting at disturbed sites. The native plants and wild seeds hunted and
harvested by Curtis & Curtis are used to restore natural cover to gaping
wounds in the earth left by strip mining, highway and pipeline
reconstruction, drilling activity, windmill installations and a multitude
of
other assaults.

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410646

Regulating the wild mushroom
L.A. County halts sales at farmers markets.
Could restaurants and supermarkets be next?
By Corie Brown, Times Staff Writer
LA Times. March 16, 2005
Although they are known to be elusive, it was a surprise when wild
mushrooms
recently disappeared from farmers markets throughout Los Angeles County.

On Feb. 2, the vendor at the Santa Monica and Hollywood markets, David
West,
was shut down by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. Two
weeks later, two other vendors - the Mushroom Man, operated by Nathaniel
Pincus-Roth and Stephen Haskell, and Tradewind Mushroom, operated by Nathan
Peitso - were told by the county to halt all wild mushroom sales

http://www.natruffling.org/shrmregs.htm

US Wild Mushroom Exports and Impacts (MUSHROOM)
This is an older article, and was included because of the nice overview of
issues.
http://www.american.edu/projects/mandala/TED/mushroom.htm

Ginseng: Herb with ties to area prized as a folk remedy
It was 100 years ago in April that Marion Huffman, a well-known druggist in
Marietta, started what was called "a new agricultural industry" on his
Brooks Run farm
http://www.mariettatimes.com/news/story/049202005_new09ginsenngg.asp

Legislation Aims to Regulate Ginseng Harvest
Posted 3/24/2005

      The Legislature is considering rules that will help distinguish wild
varieties from cultivated roots

http://www.wboy.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=1831

Undocumented Immigrants Recruited to Grow Marijuana in National Park
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Sequoia National Park authorities have
found
at least 40 marijuana fields in the last two years. Last year, five
undocumented Mexican immigrants were arrested in one of the fields,
according to a National Park Service investigator who did not want to be
identified
http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=86acd7298461c568c149043c420677df

More than 300 million palm fronds are harvested each year for U.S.
consumption alone - most of them for Palm Sunday.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050319/ap_on_sc/eco_friendly_palm_sunday

Monitoring native bee populations on organic farms close to wild habitat,
organic farms distant from wild habitat, and conventional farms distant
from
wild habitat (conventional farms tend not to located with close proximity
to
wild habitat), Kremen's research group found that 80 percent of organic
farms close to wild habitat could rely entirely on native pollinators for
pollination services. By contrast, just 50 percent of organic farms located

distant from wild habitat could rely on native pollinators alone, and none
of the conventional farms had sufficient native pollinators for pollination

needs. Overall, native bees provided 28 percent of pollination on
conventional farms and 60 percent on organic farms.

http://www.newfarm.org/research/2005/mar05/pollinator.shtml
In their native habitats, Braswell says, orchids form "a symbiotic
relationship with the bacteria in the soil, and they can't survive without
them."
Wildflowers are part of the plan of interdependency in more ways than one.
Honeybees need wildflowers, Braswell points out. So do butterflies.
http://springfield.news-leader.com/lifestyle/outdoors/20050310-Wildflowersabou.html

Dave spotted strings of groundnuts, hanging high and dry against a sheer,
dirt bank on the outside of a bend. These almond-sized tubers grow like a
necklace, connected together with a vein-like root, so we raked them off
with our hands as the canoe drifted past. Normally, collecting enough for a
meal requires plenty of digging, but that day, gathering a glutton's
portion
took less than a minute.
After we gathered the wild food, Dave gave me the history and folklore of
this plant. Groundnuts were a staple of Native Americans and early
settlers,
and it is easy to see why. They have a potato-like taste, so baking them
with butter and onions creates a flavorful side dish
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2005/02/01delcougarsnotat.html

Tender fiddleheads mean spring is here:
 "Nature gives us great products," Shariat said. "We just have to
understand
how to use them properly. Once, fiddleheads were fairly common in the
spring, but we lost the understanding of their use over the years. Now,
chefs are making a comeback with them."
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050401/FEATURES02/504010308

Nearby is a large stand of common evening primrose, with pepper-sweet white
taproots.  Close by, we'll find burdock, with a nutritious taproot that
tastes like a combination of artichokes and potatoes.
And that's not far from a stand of sheep sorrel, a sour-tasting vegetable
great in salads and soups, pungent poor man's pepper, and its equally hot
relative, mountain watercress.
http://westchester.com/Westchester_News/Westchester_Community_News/Hunt_For_Common_Evening_Primrose_With_'Wildman'_Steve_Brill_March_27th_200503144885.html

ANNOUNCEMENTS & PUBLICATIONS

The National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry (NCSSF)
released
Science, Biodiversity and Sustainable Forestry, a report presenting the
findings of its first two years of work, at the USDA Forest Service
Centennial Congress.  The Commission is a program of the National Council
for Science and the Environment (NCSE).  Salwasser continued, "One result
of
this is continued confusion over the complimentary roles of reserves and
working forests in biodiversity conservation.  We now know it is possible
to
conduct cost-effective conservation strategies and also allow for the
sustainable production of natural resources which enhance the quality of
human life."
 http://www.ncseonline.org/updates/page.cfm?FID=4317

New Research on Pine Bark (Pycnogenol) and Childhood Asthma
2005-01-20 - Natural Health Science Inc.
http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=11498&zoneid=24