Organic or Commercial?
When we consider the choice between organic and commercial herbs, we're not just making choices about what goes into our bodies. We're making choices for a sustainable ecosystem.
Commercial agriculture puts a lot of chemicals into the soil and the water.
As we live in communion with the natural world, we recognize that this choice has larger repercussions that just what we are putting in our own bodies. Choosing organic helps us make more potent herbal extracts, and contributes to the health of the planet, as a whole.
Ethical Wildcrafting
Wildcrafted plants have been collected in the wilderness, and this can mean a lot of things.
The sustainable herbalist will only purchase or work with wildcrafted plants that have been properly identified as "ethically wildcrafted."
Ethically wildcrafted plants were harvested with an awareness of the sustainability of that plant species, and the health of the ecosystem that it was harvested from. However, what is meant by "ethical wildcrafting" can vary a lot depending on who you're talking to. For this reason, it can be hard to get solid information about whether or not the herbs have been harvested ethically.
The unfortunate example of American Ginseng:
Ginseng gives us a profound example of what happens when a medicinal plant is overharvested from the wild without recognizing the larger repercussions. This plant was prolific only a century ago in the mountains of the southeast US. Now, it is very rare to find a stand of it that is large enough to warrant the harvesting of any of it.
Wildcrafted vs Cultivated
The truly sustainable option is to choose ethically cultivated and harvested herbs. This takes the strain off of the delicate natural ecosystems that provide these native plants, and it supports the long-term health of these very special herbs.
The United Plant Savers
The United Plant Savers is a non-profit organization that was started by Rosemary Gladstar and her colleagues, with the mission to protect the wild medicinal plants of North America and the ecosystems that they come from. They maintain list of "at risk" plants.
These resources are of such important tools for any herbalist who wants to help these herbs survive into the future.
In a 2024 interview with Yolanda Joy, Rosemary Gladstar explained how United Plant Savers got started:
"We decided that we were going to form an organization, and we were all pretty renegade. None of us had ever formed a non-profit. Most of us did not want to be a part of an organization. We thought, we'll put together an organization. We'll make a big racquet. We'll go to these big natural foods expos and we'll say, 'Where are these plants coming from?' And then we'll disband because we will have made a noise.
"But that isn't how it happened at all.
"You know, the plants guided us, and we realized the importance of this organization.
"And it really did change the face of how herbalism is practiced in this country. You know, it always brings it back to the plants. And the whole idea of the preservation and conservation and cultivation grew out of this voice that we created together.
"I could never have done that by myself. And in fact, a lot of my ideas wouldn't have worked.
Like, I would have said 'Moratoriums on all these wild plants!' That would never have worked with the herb companies. Right? We needed them to back us, so it was like, not moratoriums but looking at how, over a number of years, we could transit into cultivated rather than wildcrafted.
"And have we solved the problem? Absolutely not. It's a huge problem, and we've not made any difference with these huge companies that, you know, aren't formed by herbalists. But definitely with all the medium-sized companies, some of the large companies, and definitely within the herbal communities themselves, plant conservation is an important part of the discussion.
"So what we did, all of you can do. You know? That one little message that came from the plants that day in the forest that inspired me to call together some friends and say, 'Is there a problem here? Are we making a problem? Are we part of that problem? If so, we need to be the solution.'"
At the end of the interview, she went on to say:
"It's something that we all can do, and it's just starting small. You know, our vision for doing it was small. As I said, we kept it small, so that we could accomplish what we set out to do. And we let it grow slowly over the years. So, yeah, it's pretty exciting and inspiring and, yeah, all in the name of the plants that we love, right? Because I think when we just take a moment to breathe in deeply, and we think about all the gifts that the plants give to us, you know? The air we breathe, the clothing we wear, the medicine that we take. You know, some of the best medicine in the world, quite honestly. The food that we eat, you know? And the beauty. If the plants did nothing else for us than carpet this earth with the beauty that they do, that would surely be enough. So to just serve them back. I mean, they are going to make us successful... but it's a reciprocal relationship... The more we listen to them, the more they'll talk to us and tell us how to do this work."
I wholeheartedly encourage you to get to know the United Plant Savers, their mission, and the tools they have created for the herbal community. The importance of their mission can't be overstated.
Finding the power in your everyday choices
Recognizing the importance of these choices deepens our interconnection with the natural world and empowers us to do what we can to ensure that these useful plants will be around for a long time to come.
What choices are you making in your own herbal habits to make sure that these plants are around for the generations of the future?
We're all in this together :)