Gather no moss...

A growing industry? Not for the moss, which is increasingly in demand by home decorators. Moss poachers (yes, there is such a thing), eager for a piece of a multi-million dollar sales industry, are causing problems for ecosystems dependant on the stuff.

"...a growing number of researchers and land managers who are worried about the effect of commercial moss gathering."

Another article on the same subject appears in today's New York Times.

Full Article

Moss Hunters Roll Away Nature's Carpet, and Some Ecologists Worry

By JOSHUA TOMPKINS
The New York Times

Published: November 30, 2004

 

hile a rolling stone may gather no moss, what Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer wants to know is how quickly a stationary stone can collect it. Specifically, how quickly moss, when stripped from boulders or tree trunks or the forest floor, will grow back.

Dr. Kimmerer, a professor of environmental and forest biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, is one of a growing number of researchers and land managers who are worried about the effect of commercial moss gathering.

She has seen the aftermath of such gathering firsthand, having once bushwhacked her way up a muddy hillside in western Oregon, following the trail of harvesters to a grove of maple trees hiding in the mist.

Winded by the climb and bloody from thorn scrapes, she took in the scene, described last year in her book "Gathering Moss." On the far side of a stream, the trees were swaddled in moss, its lush fabric wrapped around the trunks in woolly pelts and hanging from the branches like green gossamer beards.

But on her side of the water, the maples were bare. Their moss had been torn off, stuffed into burlap sacks, and hauled back down the hill. Frowning at a cigarette package left by one of the harvesters, Dr. Kimmerer marveled at how they had gotten their heavy prize through the salmonberry bramble and wondered if they knew what they had plundered. "What it was, of course, is a living carpet that might have been a hundred years old," she said recently in a telephone interview.

Her frustration stresses the contradictory relationship humans have with moss, an ancient, primitive plant whose role in forest ecology is still just partly understood. Overlooked in its habitat - or even mistaken for a blight - moss is nevertheless sought for its aesthetic value at nurseries, craft stores and floral shops around the country, lining baskets and adorning wreaths.

With gatherers roaming public and private property for fresh pickings, the loosely regulated industry faces scientific scrutiny as biologists and businesses clash over research findings and land managers struggle to enforce collection policies across huge tracts with scarce personnel.

Last year, harvesters in the United States bagged as much as 17 million pounds of moss, according to an estimate by Dr. Patricia Muir, a professor of botany and plant pathology at Oregon State University. Most of the moss is from the Pacific Northwest and Appalachia, where moderate winters and abundant rain allow moss to thrive.

Gatherers favor a few popular species, none of them endangered or threatened (no mosses are), pulling them from rocks and logs in the East and hardwoods in the West. Harvesters use bare hands and an occasional rake or ladder, but sometimes they get brazen: Oregon officials once saw harvesters who had strung a cable down a small valley and strapped a shopping cart to it to hoist moss up to the road.

The question is how soon new moss can take its place. A tree shrouded in moss may have needed decades or longer to get that way, and after harvesting, regeneration is even slower. Dr. Kimmerer's study of an experimentally harvested area found in some cases a recovery rate of only 1 percent per year. "You're looking at 100 years to get back to the initial volume," she said. "Yes, it's a renewable resource, but not on any meaningful time scale."

Land managers in the Pacific Northwest and Appalachia are trying to curtail legal and illicit gathering. The Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia has ceased issuing collection permits, and the Siuslaw National Forest in Oregon limits the amount of moss that can be taken each year -a few thousand pounds in some districts - but many gatherers flout restrictions.

"It's a continuous problem," said Rich Babcock, the special forest products coordinator for the Hebo District in Siuslaw, the busiest collection area. "You see a lot of moss going down the road in the late evening, and you really don't know where it's coming from."

Comments

[Grace Nichols]

I'm thankful that a scientist is speaking out for the interests of a class of plants that has been widely overlooked. Her spirit of knowledge and appreciation for the mosses is compelling to me. It urges me to look at the persistent and ancient species.

Her concern regarding the impact of homo sapiens on the wilderness is also important. When off road vehicles mess with the land and create noise pollution, many species are affected. How many species are affected by the disturbance in the moss cover? Does anyone actually know?

Wilderness: Keep it Wild!

[Don Hedman]

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING. THIS IS A JOKE SITE RIGHT?...MOSS POACHERS?.. I AM AN EDUCATED, MATURE ADULT, WONDERING HOW A FELLOW SCIENTIST AND ENVIRONMENTALIST COULD EVEN CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY THAT MANKIND COULD EVER!EVER!EVER! DESTROY THE MOSSES OF THE PLANET. THESE PLANTS HAVE BEEN SUBSTRUCTURE FOR MILLENIA. WE'RE NOT TALKING SNAIL DARTERS HERE. PLEASE CONSIDER YOUR PRIORITIES, AND CERTAINLY YOUR FUTURE. SHEEEEEESH!