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<DIV>MPWG:</DIV>
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<DIV>I am very actively growing woodland medicinal herbs on our 700+
acre Tree Farm in central West Virginia.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Much of my effort has been to try to coincide different forest management
practices and harvest treatments to create optimum conditions for enhancing
growth, development and natural regeneration of native forest understory
plants.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Although we have several hundred acres of native black Cohosh and native
populations of Goldenseal and American ginseng as well as several hundred
species of plants in abundance on our property that we are monitoring, managing,
transplanting and salvaging, most herbalists I come in contact with want to
refer to the medicinal commodities that my forestland produces as
"ethically wildcrafted."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>As "wildcrafting" becomes a term that is likely to have increasingly
negative connotations in terms of being an environmentally sustainable endeavor
I am concerned that I am going to have a more difficult time
marketing commodities from my property under a designation which largely
denigrates the time, effort and expense I am putting into the
process.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> I am also concerned that to produce medicinal plants under such a
natural forest situation would carry a lot of baggage if it becomes stuck
with such a designation as "ethically wildcrafted" as that designation could be
used to imply that most wildcrafters are have no ethics.</DIV>
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<DIV>Russ Richardson</DIV>
<DIV>Crummies Creek Tree Farm</DIV>
<DIV>PO Box 207</DIV>
<DIV>Arnoldsburg, WV 25234 </DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>