Implications of Variation in Social-Ecological Systems for the Development of U.S. Fungal Management Policy

Abstract

Public lands fungal management in the United States developed in direct response to commercial harvesting in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) in the 1980s. In the early 2000s, concerns over declining morel mushroom abundance in national parks in the greater Washington, DC, region (NCR) led to the creation of harvest limits and stimulated research on the social-ecological system of morels in that region. In this article we compare findings from research on morel harvesting conducted at two national parks in the NCR from 2004 to 2007, with fungal management from two federal units in the PNW. We find substantial differences in existing regulatory policies, historical and cultural harvesting practices, and taxonomic and ecological variation in Morchella, indicating the need for regionally specific management. To address these differences, we recommend a participatory approach incorporating the local social-ecological specificities of mushroom harvesting and ecology that are missed at coarser spatial and temporal scales.

Keywords:

• fungi
• nontimber forest products
• participatory research
• resource management
• wild edible mushrooms

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to the National Park Service for support of the research on which this article is based. We thank Mike Siegel, Rutgers University Geography Department, for Figure 1. Richard Schroeder, Patrick Hurley, Stephanie Snyder, and two anonymous reviewers provided very helpful comments on previous drafts.

Notes

Personal uses include provisioning and recreation. Cultural uses include ceremonial and medicinal (Emery and McLain 2001).

For the complete study see Barron and Emery (2009).

Where contemporary subsistence is understood as “any direct use of natural resources to meet the requirements of material and cultural survival outside the formal market … [including] gathering to obtain food, medicine, and utilitarian materials” (Emery and Pierce 2005, 983).

The common practice of measuring harvest quantities by volume and retail mushrooms by weight makes precise comparisons difficult. However, harvesters in the PNW estimate the conversion factor to be anywhere from 1:1 (pounds:gallons) to 1:2. Either way, the values of prices per unit are substantially different.

We use morphotype to denote differentiation of individuals based on morphological characteristics, leading to a typology: i.e., black, yellow, etc. Morphospecies are defined as scientific species based on morphology, many of which are outdated due to genetic work. The more general word species suggests a scientific name based on either morphology, genetic data, or a combination of both.

Mark Savage, Special Forest Products Manager for state of Washington, in discussion with ESB (January 2008).