[MPWG] Science paper on ginseng

[Cafesombra at aol.com]

Thanks for your comments Mr. McGraw. Sorry about my comment about the "old-school forestry" and "lip service to caring." There is a lot of that going around, but you have obviously dedicated quite a bit of caring attention to this issue.

It is frustrating, however, that the deer issue comes up over and over again and captures so much public attention, often at the expense of considering the deeper issues, with the solution of issuing more hunting licenses usually ending all conversation on the matter of what to do about a wide range of conservation issues(unless there are animal rights activists nearby).  Here in PA as in WV and elsewhere, the deer are so obvious and such a normal part of everyday life it is too easy for public attention to be distracted by them, we "can't see the forest for the deer."

Killing "nuasance" animals (as it was Aldo Leopold's job to do when he experienced his famous epiphany while gazing into the eyes of a dying wolf he'd shot) is, unfortunately, at this juncture a part of the solution.  Introducing predators, while enormously complicated and politically charged, is as well.  And doing nothing, probably for political reasons, is at times a part of the solution too.

But I think most or all of us can say we've seen local landscapes transform around us.  I am sure people like Mr. McGraw who make it their business to study the environment are equally or more accutely aware of this.  Wild forests, woodlots, and fallow fields become mowed and measured yards, stripmalls, bigger highways, industrial parks, etc.  You don't need a PhD to confirm that.  The "do nothing" approach I think we all know is worn out and leading us nowhere.  So we've got to start "thinking outside of the box" in spite of the fact that issues of private property and the public good, land use and development, resource squandering or conservation, are about as politically charged as the notion of releasing wolves and cougars into Main Line neighborhoods would be.  We have to do something.

I live in Centre County Pennsylvania and along with vast hectares of State Forests, farmlands, and a Big Ten University, and of course the usual growth and sprawl pressures as well, we have an 8000 acre state prison complex here. The prison grounds stretch up over a forested mountain ridge, through a rich agricultual valley and across one of the better trout streams in the Northeast. The land contains representation of probably all local microecosystem types.  Our local Native Plant Society members have found amazing to-die-for examples of rare threatened and endangered species there -- but you have to get the state's permission to set foot on the property.  Prison labor farm there, run a logging schedule, operate a nursery... I hope you all see what I am getting at.

I've approached the prison and university people about state-sponsored botanical sanctuary there, but it's just not for me (at one point, prison staff told me that a woman wondering around the all-male prison grounds was unacceptable; at another they were concerned it would interfer with the logging schedule... But mostly, I am simply not the right person to take it on, neither an academic nor a scientist...)  I have often wondered, though, why it doesn't happen.  8000 acres with no public access.  Therapuetic and potentially rehabilitating labor for a captive labor force, potentially self-sustaining income generation, and a legitimate public good for state-owned land.  Hello???

Instead we see politicians trying to weaken the ESA for "reasons of national security" (Note to anyone who has sway in these matters, in addition to prisons there are thousands of hectares of wild lands owned by the military...)  or because it interfers with private landowners' rights.  There has even been talk of removing plants altogether from ESA consideration if you recall.  When we could be designing biodiverse seed banks and natural medicine chests and income-generating enterprise for the state.

To the gentleman who wrote to me privately to remind me that human beings are here to stay:  I am glad you agree!  Perhaps we ought to act that way!

Cheers everyone, Jennifer Chesworth
www.herbalistswithoutborders.com