The chocolate you eat, the moisturizer you use, the tea you drink—these everyday products contain ingredients from wild plants. But little thought is given to where they’re found or how they’re harvested
The chocolate you eat, the moisturizer you use, the tea you drink—these everyday products contain ingredients from wild plants. The way those plants—many of them threatened—are harvested may be damaging the environment and exploiting workers,The UN-affiliated report by wildlife trade experts highlights 12 plants: frankincense, shea, Brazil nut, juniper, licorice, baobab, argan, candelilla, pygeum, jatamansi, gum arabic, and goldenseal.
Many plants identified in the report—published in April by Traffic, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group with the International Union for Conservation of Nature —are threatened with extinction. The main threats are overharvesting, invasive pests and disease, climate change, and habitat loss. As with Brazil nuts, harvesting plants for their ingredients may involve child labor and violations of workers’ rights, according to the report.
Local communities have used wild plants—frankincense in Somalia, Brazil nuts in South America, baobab powder in southern Africa—for centuries, but the global demand today puts many at risk of overharvesting.
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