Every time I think the human species has fully exploited all the ways one species can suck donkey balls -- found just every reason for all the other species be like "Yeah, we're not with them." -- we find newer, better ways. Such as, for instance, bark poaching:
Slippery elm trees here are falling victim to thieves who tear off their bark to sell in the burgeoning herbal-remedy market.
The gummy lining of the slippery elm's bark has long been used in North America, and especially in Appalachia, as a soothing agent for coughs, gastrointestinal ailments and skin irritations. But now, slippery elm and other herbal products once used seasonally by local residents are in demand by millions.
"There's a huge market in botanicals going into herbal medicines," said John Garrison, a National Park Service spokesman. "Virtually everything on public lands has a market."
Dietary supplements, which include herbal remedies, are a $23 billion industry in the United States, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Slippery elms are native to North America and can be found from Canada to Texas. The authorities say the prime season for stealing the bark is mid-June and early July.
A half-dozen suspects have been arrested this summer on suspicion of poaching the bark here in the Daniel Boone National Forest, which comprises 706,000 acres along the Cumberland Plateau in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky.
What the hell?! Why would you even do that? And the best part is that there is really no evidence that any of this stuff works.
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Brother Jake, this has also been going on in western NC as well under the practice of "wildcrafting." There are concerns that black cohosh, American ginseng, and goldenseal are being driven into extinction (or at least local populations decimated), again as you state, with very little evidence outside of cell culture or pure enzyme systems that these herbs are useful for any therapeutic or preventative indication.
You'd do better to save your outrage for herbal medicines that are ineffective and dangerous.
Slippery elm is a good example of an herb that is proven to work, maybe the best example of all. It is mucilaginous, so it soothes the throat and stomach. Pills made from powdered flavored bark produce mucilage when they come into contact with saliva by being sucked or swallowed. Slippery elm as a medicine (as opposed to an "alrernative remedy") was listed in The United States Pharmacopeia until 1960, and was declared safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration. The only reason it isn't more widely used now is because of an inconvenience called Dutch elm disease.
As a skeptic who is too smart to write off the medivinal value of certain plants, I only wish all so-called "healing herbs" were a tenth as safe and effective.
I saw this in the news, and it made me really sad. Pretty much the researcher was saying "This 50-year old tree doesn't know its dead yet. Its leaves are still green but it will be dead in a couple months. There's nothing we can do." It had been stripped of bark from the bottom to the top. If these people were smart they'd only take a little bark at a time so the tree could make more (do they make more, I'm unsure). Anyway, that sucks.