Source: FairWild Foundation.
The subject of endangered medicinal plants is very close to my heart. In the early part of the millennium I was asked to attend a meeting at Samye Ling Tibetan Centre, where a group of people had been assembled to discuss how best to conserve Tibetan medicinal plants. My spiritual teacher, Akong Rinpoché, was concerned about the wild harvesting of Tibetan medicinal plants within Tibetan areas of China. With a huge surge in the popularity of Tibetan medicine, the demand for Tibetan medicinal herbs was soaring. Since wild harvesting is the traditional way of sourcing herbs in Tibet, there was increasing pressure on traditional gathering areas. Opportunistic foragers were moving in and picking herbs in order to supplement their meagre family incomes. Lack of knowledge and respect for the plants meant that many plants were unnecessarily uprooted during gathering, because it is quicker to do it that way. Having studied medicinal plants in Amdo, I can report that it is very easy to inadvertently uproot plants at high altitude because the soil is so thin and dry in the summer months. Plants that are traditionally gathered for their roots are even more vulnerable to population depletion, and many are becoming very scarce. There is no established tradition of growing medicinal plants in Tibet; in fact, it has always been considered less desirable due to the risk of inadvertently killing small beings that inhabit the soil. It is also considered that medicines that have grown in the wild are more potent than those that have been cultivated. Unfortunately, with many medicines critically endangered or officially extinct in the wild, we need to encourage a shift in sourcing patterns, even if it is somewhat of a compromise. Akong Rinpoché had the foresight to start to change this pattern. He decided to sponsor young Tibetan doctors to come to the West and learn horticulture. Once they had been trained in the production of herbs, he encouraged them to set up small herb gardens in Tibet, in the areas where they would be practising. He also planned to establish two larger herb-growing areas, in order to improve supplies of herbs and to gain experience in cultivation and harvesting practices. At that time, he asked me and a friend, Betty Richardson, to start to grow medicinal herbs in the United Kingdom. The aim was for us to build up knowledge about how to grow the herbs at lower altitude and in the softer growing conditions in Europe. In time, the European-sourced herbs could help to supply Tibetan medicinal practitioners based in the West. He specified that this initial herb growing should take place in Somerset, although at the time I was living in Dorset and Betty was living in Gloucestershire. We thought it was odd, wondering whether he was mistaken, since the counties are adjacent. A few years later Betty had moved her growing operations to Spain, and my family and I found ourselves unexpectedly having to move away from Dorset. We ended up in Somerset.
I now grow some Tibetan medicinal plants in my garden. Each year of growing adds to my knowledge about how to care for and propagate these herbs in the West. My efforts are especially focused on plants that are scarce, and one, Himalayan Burdock (Saussurea lappa), is officially extinct in the wild. Saussurea lappa, also known as Costus (‘Ruta’ in Tibetan), is gathered for its root, which is a warming bitter, particularly valuable for people with a nervous disposition who are suffering with digestive weakness. It is a very popular medicine and is used in a great many important traditional formulae. In consequence, it is in great demand. Although officially extinct in the wild according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora [CITES], there may possibly be some remote populations still existing at high altitudes, accessible only to those who know the locality. It does worry me that wild harvesting may still be continuing, as there is such a strong demand for these plants. The way forward for this plant is definitely to encourage the availability of good-quality cultivated stock, and hopefully in time wild populations may begin to recover.
It is definitely food for thought to be growing and harvesting seeds from a plant that is so precious and scarce. My trips to Tibet and this small-scale conservation work has really brought home to me the reality of how our demand for medicinal herbs affects the habitats and plant populations far from where we live. Many plants used by medical herbalists are at risk in the wild. Take Golden Seal (Hydrastis canadensis), Slippery Elm (Ulmus fulva), Blue Cohosh (Caulophylum thalictroides), Ginseng (Panax ginseng and Panax quinquefolius), Beth Root (Trillium erectum) and Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa or Cimicifuga racemosa, as it was formerly known), for example. It is not all doom and gloom, though: great conservation work and awareness-raising is being done by United Plant Savers and other conservation bodies. Growers are stepping up to the challenge and growing these endangered and scarce species, so that there are sustainable sources for practitioners to buy stock from. It is also inspiring to see the work being done by the Sustainable Herbs Program. It would seem that plants do, in fact, have people speaking up for them.
As herbalists, we source and work with a wide range of medicinal plants other than those that are endangered. Some will be relatively common, others will be scarcer. Certification schemes can be a helpful guide to how herbs have been produced, but availability of certified stock may be limited, and we cannot know everything about how they have been produced and the social and environmental impact that has been created. Ultimately, the best way to ensure that we take care of the environment while sourcing our herbs is to form relationships with local growers or to start to grow them or gather them ourselves. When we do this, we know that our actions will not have contributed to the destruction of a habitat or to the depletion of a scarce plant population. The herbs will not have been shipped long distances using fossil fuels. Their production will not have contributed to social inequality or exploitation.
We may not be able to grow or gather all that we need, but each herb that we can source in a self-sufficient manner will result in a significant positive contribution to the environment, along with many other benefits.
_____________
1 Khenpo Troru Tsenam's teaching of the Root Tantra, 1994, translated by Katia Holmes, 1994.
2
Quality of plant medicines
When I first started growing and gathering my own herbs, I was motivated by factors other than quality. I had come to herbal medicine through my love of herbs, and it was only natural that I should wish to spend time with them. By growing and gathering the herbs that I was using to treat patients, I could build a real connection with them and get to know them much more deeply than if I had been relying on bought-in dried herbs. At first, I gathered only relatively few herbs. Each year, as I came to know my local area better, I was able to increase the number of species that I could collect. In the early years, though, I relied more on a mixture of bought-in herbs combined with those that I had grown or gathered myself. In those days, I was not as proficient as I am now at estimating the quantity of each herb that I would need during the year ahead. I would often start the season with my own herbs and then buy in replacement stock when it was needed. As a result, I had numerous opportunities to compare my own home-grown and wild-harvested herbs with those that were provided by herbal wholesalers. I immediately realized that the quality of my own herbs seemed markedly better than those that I was buying in.
Even though large-scale herbal suppliers make every effort to source the highest possible quality herbs for sale, they would be the first to agree that batches arriving at the warehouse vary, in both medicinal and keeping qualities. In order to safeguard quality and safety, suppliers have to put into place sophisticated, costly, time-consuming procedures to assess each batch of herbs that they purchase. It is worth noting that the certification schemes that were outlined in the previous chapter do not guarantee the quality of herbs. They simply give assurances about how they have been grown and harvested. For example, we touched on the issues surrounding wild harvesting and the efforts to address social inequalities in traditional gathering populations by FairWild certification. Very impoverished gatherers, paid by the weight of herb collected, may
