Our Thoughts On
The Ethics of Wildcrafting
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As wildcrafters, land tenders, people of settler-colonial origins living on unceded Nisenan land aspiring to be responsibly and deeply in relationship with that land, we recognize the complexity of our desires. We recognize the tremendous harm that has been done to the first people who lived in reciprocity with this land, its creatures and plants, by those who came seeking personal fortunes by extraction. We are active in our endeavors to show up humbly and earnestly to what it means to repair that legacy of harm. It is a process, a dialogue, it is profoundly nuanced, it is uncomfortably complex.
Our hope is that the more people receive from the abundance of the earth and others it will inspire reciprocity, and that inspiration can in time become the kind of interdependence and mutual benefit that is the basis of healthy culture.
We hope that providing ways to be more connected to local food and medicine can slowly build a local culture of respect and reciprocity. So much of what feeds and unites us as a small emergent culture of friends can't possibly be priced (acorn pancake brunches, land restoration work parties), and we are fundamentally uncomfortable with turning the gifts of the earth into consumable products for strangers.
That said, we feel it is important to be part of fostering a culture of reliance on herbal medicine and traditional foods, native to our ancestral homelands and native to this beautiful place that is now our home. We don’t “sell" native plants - we “sell” our time that goes into making the medicine we offer.
We believe in strengthening local community and we choose to live in Nevada County because there is a strong culture of local support, which is an essential ingredient to growing sustainable, place-based culture. Nevada County also comes with an inheritance of genocide and extraction. These areas of the Sierra Foothills are the ancestral lands and unceded territories of the Nisenan, Maidu, Miwok and Siakumne peoples. We are actively learning their stories and how to be good community members to them. To learn more about the lives of these tribes, see the links below.
What little money we make we is invested in the land that supports us and in our local community. When we wild harvest, we do it respectfully and responsibly. We gather seeds and replant them. We are slowly cultivating long-term relationships with harvest sites. We give back, we pay it forward. We are highly imperfect. But we will stay curious ~ we educate ourselves, we dialogue, we welcome feedback, we donate, we volunteer, we cultivate unique and emergent ways to engage with the complexity we find ourselves tangled in. We hope you do too.
*10% of our profits are donated to the local Nisenan tribe via their non-profit CHIRP*
Find out more about the Nisenan tribe:
http://www.nevadacityrancheria.org/
California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project
Find out more about the Siakumne tribe:
Find out more about the Colfax-Todds Valley Consolidated tribe: