Urban Agriculture

12/7/2020 New York Moves to Stop Foraging in City’s Parks - The New York Times

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By Lisa W. Foderaro

July 29, 2011

Maybe it is the spiraling cost of food in a tough economy or the logical next step in the movement to eat locally. Whatever the

reason, New Yorkers are increasingly fanning out across the city’s parks to hunt and gather edible wild plants, like mushrooms,

American ginger and elderberries.

Now parks officials want them to stop. New York’s public lands are not a communal pantry, they say. In recent months, the city

has stepped up training of park rangers and enforcement-patrol officers, directing them to keep an eye out for foragers and chase

them off.

“If people decide that they want to make their salads out of our plants, then we’re not going to have any chipmunks,” said Maria

Hernandez, director of horticulture for the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit group that manages Central Park.

Plants are not the only things people are taking. In Prospect Park in Brooklyn last week, park rangers issued four summonses to

two people for illegal fishing. Although officials say such poaching is not widespread, park advocates say taking fish and turtles

for food is not uncommon, and some have reported evidence of traps designed to snare wildfowl.

Foraging used to be a quirky niche, filled most notably by “Wildman” Steve Brill, who for years has led foraging tours in the

Northeast, including in Central Park. (He now sells a foraging app, too.) But foragers today are an eclectic bunch, including

downtown hipsters, recent immigrants, vegans and people who do not believe in paying for food.

Even those who would never dream of plucking sassafras during a walk in the park can read about it. The magazine Edible

Manhattan has an “Urban Forager” column (as does The New York Times’s City Room blog). And the current issue of Martha

Stewart Living features a colorful spread about foraging on Ms. Stewart’s property in Maine — but at least all those plants belong

to her.

While it has long been against the rules to collect or destroy plants in the city’s parks, with potential fines of $250, the city has

preferred education to enforcement. “It’s listed in the prohibited uses of the parks, and the simple reason is that if everyone went

out and collected whatever it is — a blackberry or wildflower — the parks couldn’t sustain that,” said Sarah Aucoin, director of

urban park rangers for the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Officials have not gone as far as posting signs in Central Park that foraging is prohibited, for fear they would serve as arrows

pointing to the most delectable areas. Ms. Hernandez of the park conservancy would take a reporter on a tour of edible plants

only on the condition that their locations not be revealed.

Enjoy Park Greenery, City Says, but Not as Salad

Ruby Harris, 9, of Brooklyn, inspecting an edible plant on a foraging tour of Prospect Park. Todd Heisler/The New York Times

12/7/2020 New York Moves to Stop Foraging in City’s Parks - The New York Times

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For their part, regular foragers — especially those who write and teach about the practice — say that they are sensitive to the

environment and that they focus on renewable items like leaves and berries. Besides, they say, much of their quarry comes from

invasive species that squeeze out native plants.

“You’re almost doing the ecosystem in the park a favor by harvesting them,” said Leda Meredith, who wrote “The Locavore’s

Handbook: The Busy Person’s Guide to Eating Local on a Budget,” which includes a chapter on foraging. Ms. Meredith, who leads

tours in Prospect Park, says 70 percent of the plants she collects are nonnative and invasive.

“Japanese knotweed is very invasive, and it’s in season in April,” she said. It can be used like rhubarb, she added.

Marie Viljoen, a garden designer who writes the foraging column for Edible Manhattan, argued that parks officials were

overstating the problem. “It’s a little alarmist to think that a park is going to be mowed down like a herd of deer went through,”

she said.

Parks officials counter that they are more worried about the novices and say that certain plants, like American ginger and ramps,

are especially vulnerable since they are yanked out, root and all. Park managers point out, too, that there are programs to weed

out invasive plants.

Then there is the danger of poisonous and toxic plants. “Not everyone knows how to use these herbs and spices,” Ms. Hernandez

said.

Some natural areas outside New York City accommodate foragers. Sandy Hook in New Jersey, which is part of the federal

Gateway National Recreation Area, limits the harvesting of beach plum fruit, berries and mushrooms to “one quart container per

person, per day,” said John Harlan Warren, a spokesman for the recreation area.

In New York’s state parks, the attitude seems more relaxed as well. “It’s illegal, but the occasional blueberry picker is not hauled

away in handcuffs,” said Tom Alworth, deputy commissioner for natural resources for the State Office of Parks, Recreation and

Historic Preservation.

Among the edible plants picked in Central Park is mountain mint. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Elderberries also grow in Central Park. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

12/7/2020 New York Moves to Stop Foraging in City’s Parks - The New York Times

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Aside from issuing summonses, the city has not taken any recent legal action. It did go after Mr. Brill for foraging in Central Park

once before: he was arrested in the mid-1980s, and it turned into a public relations debacle for the parks department. The charges

were later dropped.

After appearing on television talk shows and receiving sympathetic news coverage, Mr. Brill was actually hired by the

department as a naturalist and led foraging tours for a few years. He has since continued his tours privately, and says he is

tolerated by Central Park’s rangers. “They usually wave at me,” he said.

Even some fellow foragers look askance at Mr. Brill. One of his tours in 2009 attracted 78 people, an all-time high. “I see him as the

vaudeville showman of foraging,” Ms. Viljoen said. “I get nervous when I see that many people storming the park.”

Just what gets taken can vary from park to park, often depending on the ethnic makeup of the surrounding neighborhood.

“There are groups going around and collecting things that they recognize from their home countries,” said Gary Lincoff, an

instructor at the New York Botanical Garden, who admitted foraging in the parks for juneberries. “The Chinese gather gingko,

and I’ve talked to Koreans who are gathering white wood aster.”

Beverly McDermott, director of Friends of Kissena Park in Flushing, Queens, has confronted foragers directly when she has seen

them hauling away everything from plants to top soil to turtles. A garden in the 242-acre park that Mrs. McDermott helped revive

a decade ago has been repeatedly pillaged, with herbs, flowers and a whole weeping cherry tree disappearing.

“I have caught them leaving the park with coolers full of fish and turtles,” she said. “You need signs throughout the park. I find the

rangers to be totally useless. They’re walking around like Boy Scouts.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Enjoy Park Greenery, City Says, but Not as Salad

People also pick and take American ginger from the park. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times