The New York Times reported yesterday about the growth of -- and efforts to curb -- foraging for food plants (or even fish and turtles!) in New York's Central Park. It seems the movement has got a bit out of control, as more people have taken to removing things from the park for their dinner.
Admirably noble-savage though it may be, I have to side with city officials on their efforts to crack down. Foraging in this case has another name: it's called stealing. It's called poaching, too. If you sneak over the fence to your neighbor's yard to grab a watermelon or a few tomatoes from her garden, that's theft. In a public park, if you pull up watercress, or mushrooms, or net a fish from a pond, that's theft - multiple counts, since the owners in this case are the entire citizenry of New York City. Add to that charges of vandalism, because the park can be ravaged by such raids, and you see why public officials have good reason to increase enforcement efforts.
Foraging isn't new. In the midwest, at least, it used to be accepted practice. My mother had a favorite patch of wild asparagus she used to stop at in the spring. My father-in-law used to gather watercress from nearby streams. No one thought much about stopping alongside the road to pluck a few wildflowers. But times have changed, and we now understand (some of us do, anyway) that there are too many of us gol-durned people in the world to make it possible for everyone to "forage" without destroying our environment.
Unfortunately for foragers, I suspect there's very little land anywhere anymore where their pursuit would be technically and strictly legal. Everything is owned by somebody. There may be spots along country roadsides where no one objects; there may be large plots of private land where an owner might even give permission (especially if the foraging is limited to certain sorts of invasive species or troublesome plants); but by and large, foraging these days depends on taking something that isn't yours.
As an alternative perhaps today's foragers could get the same thrill out of scavenging in garbage cans. Almost universally, objections are unlikely unless the searcher leaves a mess; a real service is provided, waste is prevented, and the forager gets what he seeks - free food.