Conservation

Ramps, the smelly and tasty wild leek of the Appalachians (Allium tricoccum and A. burdickii), are in season. Ramp collection has long been an important spring activity for people in the Appalachians. Unfortunately, ramps have become trendy gourmet food items in big-city restaurants and markets, and overharvesting threatens many ramp populations.

Harvesting of non-timber forest products (NTFP) is a common activity of local residents throughout the world. At the low level required to meet local needs, harvesting is generally sustainable. Once a non-timber product becomes commercially valuable, it is much more difficult to sustain viable populations. Most NTFP are understory plants, though overstory nut crops like brazil nuts, can be important.

In the Appalachians, local people have been harvesting ramps, goldenseal, St. John's Wort, ginseng and mushrooms since long before Europeans arrived in North America. However, once commercial demand rose in recent years, many of these plants are threatened with overharvesting.

Ginseng is increasingly hard to find in many woodlands of eastern Kentucky. Since 1999, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has restricted the sale of wild-collected ginseng, and most states require permits for 'sangin (harvesting ginseng). Cultivated ginseng exports to Asia far outstrip export of wild-collected plants, but wild ginseng is worth more. American ginseng, Panax quinquefolium, is prized over Asian ginseng, P. ginseng. When I lived in Malaysia and Indonesia, all the kedai runcit and kedai ubat featured American ginseng, often with American flags displayed to show authenticity. I brought a box home to give to my friend Junior Marshall, who has been 'sangin in eastern Kentucky for the last 70 years, and told him I was returning his ginseng. In 2000, the US exported just over 400,000 kg of cultivated ginseng and 144,000 kg of wild ginseng. The cultivated ginseng brought a total of nearly $17 million, while the smaller wild crop brought in $24.5 million (USDA). The numbers have remained fairly static since then. Ginseng harvesting has been banned in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and is supposed to be tightly regulated by permit in the National Forests. However, enforcement staff in the Parks and Forests are spread very thin, and it is clear that considerable illicit 'sangin is continuing.

Ramp harvesting has been less controversial and less regulated. Many Appalachian communities have ramp festivals, like the Cocke County Ramp Festival in Tennessee. These celebrate not only the ramp, the first spring vegetable to be harvested, but also the local mountain culture.

However, now that ramps have been discovered by the culinary world, harvesting is getting out of hand. Great Smoky Mountains National Park has banned ramps harvesting, and permits will be required beginning next year in Nantahala National Forest. The Forest Service is eager to preserve the culturally important ramps festivals, while at the same time protecting the resource.

Conservation of ramps is made more complex by the fact that there are two species. Well, maybe there are two. Allium tricoccum is the more common ramp species. Allium burdickii is considered uncommon, rare or of uncertain status in many southern states. Most state floras and the USDA regard A. tricoccum and A. burdickii as separate species. A recent article by Gary Kaufman raises questions about the conservation status of A. burdickii and its status as a species. Analysis of proteins by electrophoresis does not show any difference between northern populations of the two species. There seems to have been no other genetic analysis of these species published.

How do we conserve these species when we don't really understand their taxonomy and conservation status? The obvious answer is to manage all ramps patches on public lands to maintain vigorous populations. Given the meagre budgets of the federal agencies managing the National Parks and Forests, ramps management will probably not have sufficiently high priority.

And what of the gourmet world? I am an avid viewer of the Food Channel, and love good cooking. How often, though, do we see high-end cooks paying any attention to the conservation status of their ingredients? Gourmet cooking seems to be almost entirely unaffected by moral decisions about the origin of ingredients. How many restaurants offer fair-traded, shade-grown coffee or sustainably-harvested fish? Ramps are just another example of how consumerism is at odds with sound conservation. And it need not be so: consumers can easily be educated to make the right choices in foods. It is the responsibility of the food industry to make those choices simple.



Reference (not on the web): Jones, A.G. 1979 A Study of Wild Leek, and the Recognition of Allium burdickii (Liliaceae). Systematic Botany, 4, 29-43.