Podcast Series, Holistic Nature of Us. Episode # 6: Meet Susan Leopold

Transcription

1 Podcast Series, Holistic Nature of Us Episode # 6: Meet Susan Leopold Susan Leopold Interview Hi, I m Judith Dreyer. Thank you for joining me for this podcast series; At the Garden s Gate presents The Holistic Nature of Us. My intent is to take us, you and I, into a better understanding of the concepts behind our holistic nature and how that ties directly to the holistic nature of the world around us. How can we connect the dots in practical ways that we are nature and nature is in us? I will be featuring authors and educators, practitioners and others whose passion for this earth helps us create bridges. We ll see what s trending, what s relevant to our world today, not just for land use but to connect the dots between our self and nature. It s time for practical action and profound inner change so our natural world is valued once again. Today I m delighted to introduce you to Susan Leopold. She is the Executive Director of United Plant Savers. It s not only a spectacular and special organization, but they re doing incredible things for saving our plant species. Susan welcome to The Holistic Nature of Us. I am so happy to have you here today. Susan: Thank you, I m happy to be here. Judith: We re kicking this one off about you and your work with United Plant Savers. Can you tell us more about the organization? Susan: Sure. The organization was really founded by Rosemary Gladstar with a group of herbalist and wildcrafters, growers, you know those that were starting herb companies. They would gather at the International Herb Symposium that Rosemary Gladstar began which takes place every other year in Boston. It s there that they birthed the idea of forming United Plant Savers because they were seeing dramatic decline in these plants due to the increased popularity and rebirth of herbalism happening in North America.

2 We will be celebrating our 25 th year in So the organization is approaching 25 years of advocating for the plants. And, we are the only organization that has this mission, which makes us extremely unique and relevant and very important. Judith: It is. I remember its beginning. I ve been a member of United Plant Savers off and on since its inception and I m always inspired by the work people are doing, not only in our country but also around the world. And how United Plant Savers has been the driving force for saving our plant species. Perhaps you could address the trends that you see in the plant world and how does United Plant Savers monitor that? Susan: It s very difficult because the herbal industry is kind of secretive about where they source plants and how many plants are being traded or put into herbal products. I will say this, that having this job for almost 7 years I really do believe that herbalism provides a gateway into understanding plants in our ecosystem. My hope for herbalism and those that are getting into holistic medicine that they then become environmentalists and activists for our environment because they are understanding the role of plants in the ecosystem. And what s most important is that if you are a consumer of herbal medicine you should really know where that plant comes from. How it grows in its ecosystem and then it becomes very obvious what is appropriate and non-appropriate use. In that regard, I have to say the biggest kind of trend or concern at this moment is really the essential oil industry. People are buying these essential oils which take tremendous amount of plant material to distill into these oils and several of the plants are endangered. One plant specifically that UPS has taken on is the endemic Hawaiian Sandalwood that grows on the big island, Santalum paniculatum and there is very little of this tree left. The trees that are being cut down for the essential oil industry are hundreds of years old and they re just not reproducing in the wild any more. The use of Hawaiian sandalwood is really the extinction of this tree. And I don t think many people who use essential oils are even aware of these cases. So that s one example. I would say another concerning trend: (and people reach out to us with their concerns and then that helps us monitor) many companies have reached out about the over

3 harvesting of chaga and the way chaga is being harvested in the wild. You see this trend in conscientious companies who are making their living off of chaga products are transitioning into growing chaga in a greenhouse environment where they re just growing the mycelium and using that in the medicine or the product instead of using wild harvested chaga. Those are two kinds of topics or examples of some of the causes. We try and gather the information and then share it with our membership. Judith: Well that s, I would think, a really pressing issue. The essential oil industry trying to do things natural, not using synthetic perfumes which a lot of people are sensitive to but with the essential oils they re not. We have a tremendous growth in yoga centers, meditation centers, holistic health centers, especially here in the Northeast. I can only address my neck of the woods. There are a ton of them around here in New England and essential oils are key to part of their practices and teachings, but I don t know if people are aware of how endangered sandalwood is. Susan: This year Young Living was taken to court for international violations. They were illegally harvesting Rosewood from the Amazon. They were claiming it was another plant. Intentionally importing it into the country illegally. And they have single-handedly pretty much wiped out Rosewood. When you look at the court case you have employees writing in saying we re harvesting this tree to extinction and they continue to do so. They were fined, found guilty and I don t think they ve really suffered any repercussions for an incredible international violation. And I would say if you ask me as an activist for the planet, the number one wildlife crime is illegal forestry. Young Living, intentionally for a decade, illegally harvested Rosewood out of the Peruvian Amazon so that s just one example. And it s amazing that they were even prosecuted. As you mentioned, people are allergic to synthetics but what people don t realize is that the essential oil industry is unregulated by the government so no one is testing those oils and a good percentage of them are not being distilled through natural steam distillation. You know chemicals are being used in the extraction of these plants. Adulteration is a big issue in the essential oil world. I d like to commend the American Botanical Council, which did a wonderful report on this. They re working at setting standards that hopefully companies will agree to comply with to address the adulteration in essential oil. I tell people about this whole multi-level marketing thing and just the incredible use of people with essential oils. Yes, there are a few really good companies. You should really know your company that you re buying your oils from and ask

4 questions about where it s being distilled; how it s being sustainably harvested and be really knowledable about the life cycle. United Plant Savers has an at risk tool. On our website we can link to it and it just asks a series of questions and then gives a numerical assessment of how at risk it is to use that plant in a commercial setting. Judith: Well that is interesting. I know that I always refer to the species at risk tab on United Plant Savers for my classes to give people a more up-todate list of what they re using and now I m seeing that you have the tool which is great. I m sure we all know people who work with multi-level marketing companies in the essential oil industry and my concern is, do they really reveal what they do? Do they really have a transparency in their harvesting practices? Susan: The only thing we can do is demand it as consumers. Judith: Okay. Susan: Because there is no regulation. There is nobody overseeing. They re not considered an herbal supplement so they don t apply to all those FDA laws, which are really helping to provide more accountability and transparency in herbal supplements. But, essential oils it s the Wild West. That s why they can get away with saying you should these oils in your water and just crazy stuff. Essential Oils are just really concentrated and are amazing but should be used in complete reverence. I also would like to bring up in South America there s amazing healing tradition of using aromatherapy, but (personally working) with the plants; gathering the plants, steaming the plants, creating herbal baths with flowers. All these things are totally accessible to us that we can harvest from our backyard and use in our daily practice. But we don t need to buy these essential oils. I encourage people to learn about how they can grow aromatic plants in their garden. They can harvest them. They can steam them. They can create hydrosols in their home. Access the plants in the most holistic way and not buying essential oils that take a tremendous amount of plant material. Or if you do, use it as if it s super sacred, you know? So anyways that s my rant on essential oils. But I will say this. I believe it s a gateway to the plant world and people are embracing it really quickly. So how can we use this as an opportunity to reach people?

5 Judith: I agree with you. I think organizations like United Plant Savers, I don t know what the right word is, but it s behind the herbal industry. The herbal industry began with people wanting to get back to more of natural medicine. I know for myself I m trained in Western Medicine but I had this incredible passion to understand what was in my backyard and how to use it. But the responsibility we have is, what is our responsibility to sustainability? What is our responsibility to future generations? And you and I both know that when the herbal industry really kicked into high gear, I want to say probably in the 90s, we started to see tremendous populations being depleted. One of which was American Ginseng, Goldenseal, and Bloodroot. Some of those plants were almost wiped off the face of the Appalachian Mountains, if I have the stories correct. And United Plant Savers is trying to regrow some of those populations and create a consciousness or a mindfulness about our responsibility when we use them. Years ago I got from one of the founding herbalists of United Plant Savers, some goldenseal. Do you know I still have it. I treat it like gold. I know it s not as potent as it was but it still has that bitter smell that s unique to Goldenseal and I use it very sparingly. And I have it so my students can actually see what it looks like. But that product is at least 25 years old. Susan: That s awesome. Judith: To me, it s like you said, it s about having respect and reverence for our plant populations in a partnership, creating that partnership. Susan: We work a lot with Appalachian herbs. We have our sanctuary in southern Ohio just south of Athens. Members can come and visit and we have an extensive population of goldenseal and we ve been doing the root give away to our members for a long time. I hear lots of wonderful baby goldenseal stories and I love those. But especially now, what s going on in Appalachia is we all have heard about the opioid epidemic. People are on meth. All these things have plagued Appalachia and then the decline of the coal industry. The economic situation is kind of dire and the first thing that people harvest to get by is plants. The plants in Appalachia are experiencing a lot of pressure. The pressure has increased not decreased. A lot of these plants are being harvested from the wild. And just down the road from the sanctuary, we had a neighbor, who were addicted to drugs. They parked on the side of the road, had gone into our woods and just hauled out trash bags of ramps. Luckily the police knew their vehicle. They were actually apprehended and we got the ramps. We were able to bring them back into

6 the forest and plant them. But wild foods such as ramps, the fiddleheads, etc. are being hit hard because of people who are desperate, it s an easy thing to go and grab and get money. And ginseng is almost like an underground economy in Appalachia. The biggest ginseng bust happened three years ago in West Virginia and it was actually a heroine bust. When they went to break in they found an insane amount, hundreds and hundreds of pounds of wild ginseng. So the dealer can just trade pills for ginseng. The work that we re doing is more important than ever. We re a membership-based organization. We have 3,000 members that support the majority of basic costs but if we had 10,000 members we could be doing amazing plant work. And so $35 is not a big ask. There s got to be 10,000 plant loving people out there that can spare $35 a year. It would expand what we can do ten fold. So in 2019 we re celebrating our 25 th and we re working on all of our planning now. We really hope we can use this 25 th celebration to honor the whole history of all the people who ve put their heart into United Plant Savers; our board members over the years, our past executive directors, our members, our botanical sanctuaries and we want to get 10,000 members in 2019 so that we can continue to do this work. Judith: And it s so timely. I mean if the plants needed us they need us today. Susan: Today, absolutely. Judith: They need us to really support organizations like yours that are making a huge difference and monitoring things like what s happened to our Appalachia Mountains. You know what most folks don t realize, and again I found this with my students, they had no idea of the plant culture in the Appalachian Mountains. I mean seng is kind of like the mountain term for ginseng and it was a huge source of revenue for very, very poor people. So there s a culture there about going into the wild, getting plants, getting money, you know, for survival. And that requires education to change that mindset. And I think United Plant Savers is doing a huge, huge job on that level. Susan: Yeah and I ll add one of the things that I ve come to realize with this job is that a majority of our medicinal plants come from mountainous

7 regions and within those mountainous regions we need those forest ecosystems. Those forest ecosystems in higher elevations are experiencing, are on the frontlines of climate change. That s where you know climate change is really being felt in the most dramatic way. So how we conserve these plants and are aware of what s going on in their ecosystem is critical to us. It s critical to them. We work a lot in Colorado monitoring Osha populations and working with the Forest Service to develop sustainable harvesting of Osha. That s one example of another mountainous important medicine that is anti-viral and is just so unique we don t want to lose this plant, you know? And with our Appalachian Mountains, I tell people even when they were exploring plants in the 1800s, early botanists were writing about the fact that Appalachia is a hot-spot of medicinal plant bio-diversity found no where else in the world. So we have an incredible legacy and treasure in our Appalachian Mountains with all the abundance of just medicinal roots. We should really take pride in that and be conscientious; our cohosh, our bloodroot, our ginseng, our goldenseal. I mean it just goes on and on. Judith: I agree with you and the only way we can do that is getting the word out and keep getting the word out and keep getting the word out, you know? Which is what United Plant Savers is doing. Well do you happen to have a couple of tips for our listeners? Something that they can apply today. I mean the first thing I would say is $35 for membership is easy for most of us. It s not difficult but if people can t do that, even $5 to your organization contributes to the work that you re doing. Do you have any other tips? Susan: Yeah, 1. I would add become educated and empowered because the more you know the better decisions you can make and even if you can t afford a membership we offer all of the information we produce free online. You can go online and if you become a member, we ll mail you the journal of medicinal plant conservation. You can go on our website and look up the journal of medicinal plant conservation and download all of our old issues, read the articles, explore the website. 2. The second thing is the plant assessment tool. Use the tool. Walk yourself through the tool with the plant you have in mind. It just gets

8 you thinking important questions like; How does a plant reproduce? What part of the plant are you harvesting?, What effect does harvesting have on the plant population?, Are you harvesting the leaves?, Are you harvesting the roots? Really know what part of the plant is used in the medicine and where that plant grows in its natural habitat and then make a conscientious decision about whether you feel like it s appropriate to use that plant. Is that company, you know, do you feel like that company is sustainably harvesting that plant. Ask that company the question if you have concerns. 3. The most empowering thing is become a botanical sanctuary. We have a network of botanical sanctuaries around the country. You can go onto the website, click on the state that you live in and then you can see what botanical sanctuaries are registered in your state. Anybody can become one. It s a process of asking yourself what plants do you have on your property? How can you increase the biodiversity of your property? How can you share that knowledge with your community? There are no right or wrong answers. It s just becoming an active part in our mission. Judith: Well I d like to interject your website address again. It s They have a great tool bar on the left of their home page and you can access all of this information, including membership, the assessment tool and the botanical sanctuary network. I want to remind our listeners again about that. Secondly, the botanical sanctuary, I had the chance to go to Rutland Ohio and kind of hang out there for a couple of days and I was so impressed. I wanted to get there because of the talking forest that is included in the trails. You can actually walk on these beautiful mountain trails and see plants identified including trees, the shrubs and the lower plants on the forest floor. It s a great way to educate yourself about what they look like and the environment that they grow in. The botanical sanctuary also has been a powerhouse of information on goldenseal specifically and American ginseng. Do you have anything else to add? I see that you re going to be having a new teaching building, is that correct? Susan: Yep. We had a campaign last year to raise money and we re building the first ever center for medicinal plant conservation and it will have a small little museum area talking about the history of medicine in

9 Appalachia and then we ll have our office in there, a small herbarium that we hope to continue to add specimens to and a teaching kitchen and a classroom. Judith: Oh that s exciting! Susan: We re excited about it. Judith: Yeah, you should be. It s a great step for the work that you re doing. Could you tell our listeners more about the botanical sanctuaries around the country? These are just people, many of them are just people in their backyards. Some of them are practitioners. What else can you tell us about the botanical sanctuary network? Susan: Like I said, anybody is able to apply. There are urban sanctuaries. There are people s backyards. There are farms. There are different botanical gardens. Botanical gardens have become sanctuaries. It s a whole range. It s very inspiring just to go on the website and read the sanctuary stories. We highlight those stories and the sanctuary network in our journal every year as well. We have a small grant program where we give grants up to $500 if you have a project you re trying to do with your botanical sanctuary. And we advertise for the botanical sanctuaries. We ll post stuff about them on our Facebook page and I also want to add that we have a free newsletter that you can sign up for on the website and be in the loop as far as all the educational events that we do every year. And then we also let people know about other events that we think apply to the United Plant Savers mission. Judith: That s great. I have to tell the listeners that as a member of United Plant Savers I did apply for a grant for a unique project in my area. It was for a children s youth garden project. We put in a medicine wheel, using 12 tree stumps with a compass in the middle. The kids can learn orientation skills. Totally set-up to the four directions. We highlight it with trail quality signs; 12 of them, either at risk or to watch plants that are native here to New England. We wanted to focus on that for our community education. The schools in the area bring kids around to the youth garden. They do have Native American components in various levels of grammar school in

10 particular and including the high school. And United Plant Savers again was supportive of that and it really helped our organization get more visibility in the community, especially for the summer programs that they run, summer camp programs for the children. The kids love it. They love digging in the dirt. They love learning about the bugs. They are fascinated with the butterfly weed and milkweeds. They see the Monarch butterflies coming in and they look at all the bee populations, not just the honey bees, just because of the diversity that s there in the landscape. That s part of my mission. It s to impress people about the true meaning of sustainability; let s look at our land use practices so that it s sustained for future generations. Right now what we ve done is not sustainable. So over-harvesting, as you ve mentioned, is not sustainable. Taking away the plant species is not sustainable. And so there are consequences for that. It s not just the plants but if we can t support the insects then we don t support the birds and then we don t support the little critters and then we don t support the big critters. And as Doug Tallamy says, before you know it, they re extinct. Something is extinct. Susan: I love him. That is such a great book, Bringing Nature Home. I encourage everybody to read it. Judith: I do too. I think it s great also. And he says you don t have to like nature but we need nature. Susan: Yeah, right. We re diminishing the earth s intelligence by forcing plants and animals and insects into extinction before their time. Judith: Yes. That s an interesting way of putting it. I hadn t thought of it that way. I feel that there is an incredible intelligence into the way this earth operates. We know from other traditions that everything in the outside world is a reflection of the inside world and we still haven t made that connection in the holistic field. We re very well versed on the Body, Mind, Spirit connection but we haven t taken that and created a bridge that nature has what we need. That nature supports what we are. Instead we just seem to disregard nature if we want to do something with it that suits our own needs and purpose. So, Susan is there anything else you d like to share? Again, United Plant Savers is for your website. Is there anything else you d like to share with my listeners?

11 Sharon: Yeah, just tune in to United Plant Savers. It s an exciting time for us and we re on fire right now. We re going to build this center will be the year of the International Herb Symposium. That will be the beginning of June. The end of June we re doing a big planting future event at Herb Farm in Oregon. Then in the fall we ll be doing a big event in September at the sanctuary. That s on the horizon. Sign up for our newsletter. We re going to making some big announcements to get people putting these dates on their calendar as we look to Judith: Well before we sign off I just would like to spend a minute or two on the International Herb Symposium. It s such a collection of really credentialed and well-established herbalist in our community. I m going to call the United States as our community. They come from all over the country and outside of the country with their specific expertise. But I was so impressed by how we ve matured in the herbal industry. Sharon: Yeah it s a wonderful event. Over 1,000 people gathered. It s unlike anything else out there I think, for those that just want exposure. I think the premise was when Rosemary founded the International Herb Symposium to demonstrate that there is diversity in how we can work with herbal medicine. It s not just one standard way. She really has set the precedent for bringing in indigenous (cultural use of plants) and just an array of practitioners and healers and people who use plants in just incredibly diverse ways. Judith: You re right. She s been such a founding mother, hasn t she, to the herbal industry in some ways. I have such respect for that woman and she walks her talk, as you do, and that s why I m so honored to have you here as a guest on The Holistic Nature of Us. Anything else before we sign off? Sharon: No, I think that s it. Judith: Well I want to thank you for joining me and my listeners at The Holistic Nature of Us. I hope all my listeners feel as inspired as I do by Susan s talk and her very practical advice. I know I do and I want to thank you and my listeners for joining me today.

12 This is Judith Dreyer, author of At the Garden s Gate book and blog. For more information go to my website You will find information for this podcast as well as the transcript for this podcast available. And I like to end with a quote from Paul Hawkin, environmentalist and author who reminds us, Sustainability, ensuring the future life on earth is an infinite game; the endless expression on behalf of all. So have a good day everyone until next time. So long.