[MPWG] Article about Medicinals & other PNW NTFPs

Thu Jun 8 00:16:23 CDT 2006

Why don't you try reading reputable research 
rather than this rubbish.  I could take apart 
most of the major claims but it really isn't 
worth my time.  For example, "specialty forest 
products....were once a low class 
sideshow."  Well, actually, salal has been 
harvested on the Olympic Peninsula since the 
1930s and has been a big employer of many people, 
especially women who were historically excluded 
from the few other types of available work in 
that area like logging.  Also, that statement is 
classist and urban centric, but then so is most 
of the modern environmental movement.  It's much 
easier to rip on the poor and powerless and turn 
a blind eye to the massive amounts of chemicals 
that are used on salal by private industry.  Or 
when they don't use chemicals they scoop it into 
the slash piles and burn it along with the moss, 
ferns, and dozens of medicinal 
plants.  Harvesters are a spit in the bucket 
compared to what the big timber companies are 
doing and will continue as long as the people on 
this list continue to pretend that they are 
somehow saving special forest products (aka 
nontimber forest products) from destruction by 
stopping the harvest.  Stop reading this poorly 
researched media and try getting out in the woods 
and see what is really going on, you might be 
shocked.  Lastly, if you are really interested in 
understanding the salal industry please write me for scientific references.

Eric T Jones, Ph.D.
Ecological Anthropologist
Institute for Culture and Ecology (501c3)
Post Office Box 6688
Portland, Oregon 97228-6688.  USA
Telephone:  503-331-6681
E-Mail:  etjones at ifcae.org
Website:  www.ifcae.org

Specialty products harvested from Northwest 
forests  including moss, salal and slender 
stalks called beargrass  once were a low-class 
sideshow to logging, picked by rural folks in 
need of extra bucks. It since has swelled to a 
mammoth industry that brings in at least a 
quarter-billion dollars a year  nearly 
one-fourth the size of the apple industry.

At 6/7/2006, mpwg-request at lists.plantconservation.org wrote:
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>Today's Topics:
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>    1. Article about Medicinals (and other Non-timber forest
>       products) in the Pacific Northwest (Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov)
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Message: 1
>Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 14:13:23 -0400
>From: Patricia_DeAngelis at fws.gov
>Subject: [MPWG] Article about Medicinals (and other Non-timber forest
>         products) in the Pacific Northwest
>To: mpwg at lists.plantconservation.org
>Message-ID:
>         <OF819CBD6D.016C9AF2-ON85257185.006202D6-85257185.00641A98 at fws.gov>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
>This is an interesting article depicting the plight faced by some folks
>who harvest non-timber forest products in the Pacific Northwest.  See the
>full story at:
>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003042206_salal06m.html
>
>Note:
> >Salal is the common name for Gaultheria species, which is harvested for
>the floral trade and also has medicinal applications.
> >Beargrass is the common name for species belonging to the genus Nolina .
>Many species in this genus, which have been traditionally used by Native
>American as food, medicine and in basketry, continue to be harvested for
>those purposes as well as for the floral industry.
>
>A war in the woods
>By Craig Welch
>Seattle Times staff reporter
>
>MATLOCK, Mason County
>      Son Chau and his wife were all alone and deep in the woods when a man
>shoved a pistol into their truck and said he was taking it all: 20,000
>stems of a shrub called salal.
>      Chau had spent the day as he spends most, snipping woody stems with
>shiny oval leaves from the forest. Any other day, he would have driven the
>plants to Shelton to be shipped to vast open-air flower markets in the
>Netherlands.
>      But that afternoon four years ago, Chau watched helplessly as bandits
>loaded his day's labor into a minivan and drove off, making him another
>casualty in what has become a war in the woods.
>      Specialty products harvested from Northwest forests ? including moss,
>salal and slender stalks called beargrass ? once were a low-class sideshow
>to logging, picked by rural folks in need of extra bucks. It since has
>swelled to a mammoth industry that brings in at least a quarter-billion
>dollars a year ? nearly one-fourth the size of the apple industry.
>
>Full story at:
>http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003042206_salal06m.html
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>The information contained in posts is not 
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>discussed on this list should be carefully 
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>the Plant Conservation 
>Alliance.
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>End of MPWG Digest, Vol 34, Issue 4
>***********************************
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