vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #158 / Special reports / Reading article...

It was once valued like gold, and poachers often paid for their crime by being buried alive in the woods.

But while the market for ginseng isn’t so potentially fatal anymore, it is still so valued in China that illegal harvesters are sneaking into Primorye to gather the root. And they threaten to strip the taiga of the root used for everything from cooking to medicine.

Primorye ginseng, like frogs, finds ready buyers in China, said Valery Shafranovsky, deputy chairman of the Primorye Committee for Natural Resources.

“The appearance of a vast Chinese market which is able to swallow everything, beginning with frogs and ending with ginseng, is the main threat to ginseng,” Shafranovsky said. “The Forest Protection Unit is demoralized by the low level of salaries. ... The issue of using weapons by them hasn’t been solved. Even the penalties for the illegal digging of ginseng roots — 15 times the minimum salary, for a root exceeding 12 grams — can only scare dilettantes.”

Recently, no case has been brought for the illegal harvest of ginseng, even though smugglers are often caught. The only hope, said Shafranovsky, is a plan for the reintroduction of ginseng into the wilds, which the Biological and Soil Institute is developing. The plan calls for the creation of specially guarded zones in the taiga and would set stiffer legal and economic barriers against ginseng smuggling.

Krai specialists praise the plan. But their objections are sadly familiar: There is no money to implement the plan. To preserve the wild ginseng would cost millions of rubles at the redenominated rate. So the only way the program could go forward is if international environmental organizations pitch in.

The Primorye Forest Department, a state organization that buys ginseng from Russian collectors, and Prodintern Primorye, a joint venture, are losing the battle against the black market. The lowest price offered by those organizations is $1.40 per gram, far below the $7.70 paid on the black market.

Meanwhile, seizures of wild ginseng grows, customs officials say.

“Compared to the same period last year, the amount of ginseng confiscated from smugglers has grown,” said Sergei Lyapustin, a Far Eastern Customs officer.

Ginseng was first harvested by Manchurians, and its use spread throughout China. When it was over-harvested on the Chinese side of the border, Chinese began gathering it in southeast Russia.

Russians learned the value of ginseng and began treating it with the kind of respect gold-rush miners gave to their stakes in the American West. In some cases, people who stole from another’s territory were even buried alive and left to die.