settlers are always so enthusiastic about ''foraging'' and then you'll start talking to them about indigenous horticulture & sustainable harvesting practices and they quickly reveal that they're more interested in the aesthetic of being a Crunchy Woodland Creature than like reducing their reliance on exploitative industrial agriculture or rebuilding their local foodshed
This is not true and it is in fact neither very simple nor very plain to forage sustainably. This kind of flippant "it's such an easy hobby" attitude when it comes to harvesting is exactly *why* there are so many problems with once-abundant traditional foods being depleted. Every plant is different, has different needs, and can support a different intensity of gathering. Foraging isn't just some fun hobby, and shouldn't be treated like one. It is a method of intentionally working land to gather resources meant to sustain oneself, whether those resources be food, medicine, or something else. It requires conscious maintenance of the land you are working, and active monitoring of not just your own gathering, but the gathering of your entire community. It requires experiential, often generational knowledge. You cannot boil a resource-gathering operation down to a simple truism and expect others to be able to do it respectfully and sustainably.
#this this this this this this this#you can't just Take#you have to tend to and take care of the populations you forage from#but like. so many people dont have the ingrained idea of like#youre in a symbiotic relationship with these plants and this land#you're not entitled to take it just because you found it#sometimes you find the thing and you dont take any#and if youre gonna take you gotta do something to help the plant or its offspring spread...#you have to think about like trends in the population and really observe those things over a long time#its hard because theres so many edible resources around us but even one disrespectful forager can deplete or eradicate a population#so people who have the knowledge are very reluctant to share it#its a (colonizer) culture wide problem <---- prev tags

















