Oh dear, now what?

[Suffolkrafter]

What I am sure about is that we owe it to every other lifeform on this earth to try and be less damaging

Amen to that!

 

[Tantalus]

Sorry but in this country, without killing things you are not going to forage nearly enough to "make ends meet" let alone survive for any length of time. The effort required to gather things to meet dietary requirements simply outweigh the available resources.
People rushing out in the hopes of getting "free food" in every hedgerow are going to be a little disappointed if they try.
As a Scot, my view of the BBC is already pretty dim, so this kind of irresponsibility comes as no real surprise.
Waiting now for the inevitable surge in poisonings caused by the article.
Please check your local A+E waiting times before eating unidentified wild fungi!

 

[slowworm]

Wild garlic? Jeez that's one plant that seems to stand a bit of harvesting. We've harvested our garden and it'll keep coming back. Can't keep the plant under control, we throw a lot just trying. Maybe if we don't clear the cut down trees they might not grow back.

Not necessarily so, and that illustrates why care needs to be taken. I warn people that ramsons can be invasive but it can also be tricky to establish. I've planted a patch on my woodland (using purchased bulbs from a sustainable source) and it's taken about decade to get to the stage where I can harvest as many leaves as I want. I wouldn't have been happy if someone had turned up and yanked out half the plants in the first couple of years.

 

[demographic]

Is this the way to the double standards thread?

 

[Paul_B]

Not necessarily so, and that illustrates why care needs to be taken. I warn people that ramsons can be invasive but it can also be tricky to establish. I've planted a patch on my woodland (using purchased bulbs from a sustainable source) and it's taken about decade to get to the stage where I can harvest as many leaves as I want. I wouldn't have been happy if someone had turned up and yanked out half the plants in the first couple of years.

Established isn't the same as establishing it. The well established patches can be grazed quite harshly ime.

 

[Stew]

I think to be realistic, there’s not suddenly going to be a rush of successful foragers out there. Maybe a few in some areas that might possibly maybe get a large amount but being someone that is mindful of wanting to forage things, it’s not exactly a super easy process - most will just find it too much effort.

 

[Ystranc]

Especially since it’s December.

 

[Robson Valley]

The situation is vastly different in western Canada where I've lived for some 65/75 years. The quantities of foraged fruit and meat are astounding annual concerns. It looks like the First Nations are making a commercial business of it but all they do is ensure that there's enough food for the village.

At least a dozen 1-car garages as smoke houses, some 300 or more salmon hanging in each one. Thousands of cubic meters of oyster shell over the centuries.

The late ecologist, Eugene Odum, looked at a human's energy budget. Per person, he predicted that 15 km^2 per person might be enough for foraging. As a shared and collective effort, harvesting erases that territory. Call it gardening if you like, the yields are very rewarding.

 

[Nice65]

Exactly. I have been studying edible plants and fungi since I was a kid and I have hundreds of acres of land with permission to shoot and forage over, and I'd still struggle to forage enough to substantially add to my pantry. OK, yes, at the right season we can pick enough berries to make jam to last the year, and we can add to flavour in some cases, but it won't substantially reduce my food bill!

If people suddenly get the idea from the media that they can 'live off the land' by nipping out to the country for the day and gathering wild plants and fungi, all that will happen is a lot of stuff will be pulled up and wasted

I think the plastic bag mushroom and wild garlic gatherers aren’t picking for their pot, they’re looking to sell to local pub kitchens or make Ramson infused oils for financial gain. It’s just rampant greed and pillage, learned behaviour considering our heritage and government.

This started here where we live about 15 years ago, and it was small scale and by local (ish) and knowledgable people who would stop by a pub with a haul of Chantrelles, Ceps, or Hedgehog mushrooms and stay for a pint and a chat about the secret locations (never ever revealed ). I’m not saying these pickers didn’t take what they could, but it was smaller scale and more cottage industry.

 

[Tengu]

A lot of the New World village sites are surrounded by edible plants.

This was not wild but more like forest gardens?

We think of it as natural but the land was managed. We see this all over the world.

 

[henchy3rd]

The plain fact is, the countryside is in crisis.
I live in a national park, so we get a lot of visitors from towns who realy have no idea how to act in this environment.
They have no real understanding of how nature works, resulting, for one example, as we see every year, in bbq fires destroying huge habitat areas that take years to recover.
Paths eroded and litter left everywhere, dog poo bags left hanging on branches, and many other things, including houses built on sensitive habitats, taking more and more of the countryside away.
I used to live in a small Hampshire village..900 people. It was a great place with allotments hop fields, wooded dell's, and fields full of horses.
Now those places are all gone. The allotments are now a surgery and car park, the fields and dell's are all gone under housing and a huge car dealership, a massive by pass has been built, destroying a large area of land, close to an idyllic quiet river. My favourite little wood that my pals and I spent many happy hours building dens, and waiting for the yearly crop of puffball to take home for a meal, is now a posh house, and garden.
It's no longer a village where everyone knew everyone, but a commuter dormitory.
I've not been back in person, but have watched the village grow with Google earth. Heartbreaking.
Soon what is left of our countryside will be gone altogether.

It’s the same where ever you go now. Green belts being moved, colossal industrial estates & massive housing estates being built on once farm lands.
New bypasses which equals more building being built eventually.
Flood plains being built on.. can’t get my head round that one?
Any bit of spare land is subject to a sale.
Chip away at the corners & before you know it, you have nothing left.
Even talk about our national parks being sold now.

 

[Paul_B]

National parks are all owned by someone or some organisation. Why can't they sell up?

Years ago I met a farmer in Buttermere with amazing passion for the land and farming it responsibly. He was only two years up there at the time having sold his farm down south somewhere. If that land hadn't been sold in a National park a passionate farmer wouldn't be working the land and you might have no farmer custodian or a farmer who doesn't care so much. Works both ways of course.

Sorry I don't agree with NPs being in aspic.