Forest Service keeps restrictive ginseng harvest measures in place in Pisgah, Nantahala

Karen Chávez | The Citizen-Times

ASHEVILLE — Ginseng continues to be a highly prized, and highly poached plant across Western North Carolina, leading the U.S. Forest Service to continue its restrictive harvesting guidelines.

In 2013 the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests implemented stricter policies for people wishing to collect ginseng, including a reduction in permits and a lottery to receive those permits. The lottery to apply for this year's ginseng harvest permits will be June 4-July 20. (Scroll to the bottom of this story for details on the lottery.)

The dark green plants produce red berries when they reach maturity, usually in early September, said U.S. Forest Service botanist Gary Kauffman.

For centuries, people have either made a living or supplemented their income through the harvest of ginseng roots, which can fetch between $500-$1,000 a pound in East Asia, where they are prized for their supposed medicinal properties.

But taking the roots kills the plants, Kauffman said, which has caused sever declines in the wild ginseng population, which was once abundant in fluffy, endless green carpets across the mountains.

Now, he said, due to over-harvesting and poaching — or stealing plants without a permit — the plants are severe decline. The Forest Service maintains ginseng plots to track the plants’ progress over time.

Five years ago the Forest Service put into place new policies on the two forests that cover more than a million acres in WNC, to help protect wild ginseng, including:

• Reducing the number of permits by 75 percent, to 136 annual permits.

• Issuing permits through a lottery system by each of six district forest offices.

• Allowing a person to harvest 1-3 wet pounds (at $40 per pound) of wild ginseng in the ranger district where the permit is issued.

• Reducing the harvest season from four to two weeks, Sept. 1-15.

• Giving authority to each district ranger to further limit ginseng harvests to certain areas of the national forest to allow the plants to regenerate or to protect designated wilderness and other natural areas.

• Prohibiting harvest in designated wilderness and other natural areas set aside for research purposes, such as Walker Cove and Black Mountain.

“The population size is still about the same. The restrictive measures don’t seem to be making a huge difference, mostly because of the difficulty of controlling poaching,” Kauffman said. “The population sizes are not increasing at all, and are decreasing in some locations by a minor amount.”

Ginseng likes to grow in rich cove forest, in a protected, “concavity” environment with steep sides, lush wildflowers populations, and areas higher in nutrient content, usually below 4,500 feet elevation, Kauffman said. It is more common in the mountains, very infrequent in the piedmont, and rare in the coastal plain.

Ginseng harvesting, or picking any plants, is prohibited in state parks and in national parks, including the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Permits state that only mature wild ginseng plants — those with three or more leaves — may be harvested, and permit holders must plant seeds from harvested plants near the site of removal.

One reason the ginseng season starts on Sept. 1 in North Carolina is that that is generally when the berries mature, and studies show germination is much higher when berries are red rather than green, Kauffman said.

He said plants should only be harvested from one plot every five years. Discussions among land management agencies and ginseng collectors and researchers have suggested waiting 10 years to pick from the same plot.

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“That would be a good if it were implemented, since 10-year-old plants can produce a lot more seeds to help regenerate a population,” Kauffman said. “Ginseng is not formally listed as a threatened species because there are a lot of populations, but they’re small. They tend to be 50-100 individual plants. Continued harvest keeps them small, so they never reach their population size of what you would see in a more natural population.”

North Carolina is one of only six states in the East that continue to allow permitted ginseng harvesting on national forests.

The Nantahala Pisgah National Forest Plan Revision, a document in the works for the past few years that is expected to be released this summer and will guide management of the two forests for the next 15-20 years, calls for increasing wild ginseng populations to 500-1,000 plants in a population.

“I’ve only seen a couple populations like that over the years. When you get a dynamic population, you get a lot of different age classes and a lot of seedlings coming in, you can get a lot of older plants that produce a lot more seeds. Ginseng can live up to 80 years of age. That’s really old for a perennial plant.”

According to the Forest Service, the agency has increased law enforcement efforts to reduce poaching. Removing a wild ginseng plant or its parts from national forests without a permit or outside of the legal harvest season is considered theft of public property. Penalties may include a fine up to $5,000, a six-month sentence in federal prison, or both.

WANT TO PICK GINSENG?

To apply for a permit, call or visit a ranger district office lottery during the application period, June 4-July 20. Requests by email will not be accepted. Written notification will be mailed to successful applicants selected by lottery before Aug. 17. District offices will start issuing permits to selected applicants Aug. 27, and the harvest will open Sept. 1.

For Ranger District contact information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/main/nfsnc/about-forest/districts.