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Herbalists gather in Williams Photo by Jim Craven From left, Sara Katz, Christopher Hobbs and Richo Cech, local board members of United Plant Savers, have organized a conference on cultivating and preserving native medicinal plants. `Planting the Future' conferees aim to preserve natural herbs By BILL KETTLER WILLIAMS -- Herbalists from across the United States will gather in this rural community Saturday to learn how to protect and preserve the plants they treasure. More than 300 people have registered for "Planting the Future," a conference on cultivating medicinal plants and preserving their habitat. About the conference WHAT: "Planting the Future" conference WHEN: 10 a.m. Saturday WHERE: The Herb Pharm, 110 Bonlinda Lane, Williams. COST: $50. Bring a pillow or blanket to sit on and rain protection if the weather turns threatening. All proceeds go to United Plant Savers. Lunch is available for an additional charge. DIRECTIONS: Take Highway 238 west past Jacksonville to Provolt. Turn left at the Provolt Store, where a sign points to Williams, and follow the signs to Williams. Take the right fork (Kincaid Road) where the road forks a quarter mile past the Williams Store, and follow Kincaid for two miles to Bonlinda Lane. Turn left on Bonlinda; turn right at first driveway. "We've got people coming from as far as New York and St. Louis," said conference organizer Sara Katz. "I'm shocked at how many people are coming." Plants provided the raw material for most human medicines until the middle of the 20th century. The heart medicine digitalis, for example, was derived from foxglove. Substances in aspirin were found in willow bark. Progesterone was developed from wild yams. Herbalists use plants to create natural medicines, just as humans have done for thousands of years. Many of the plants they use are threatened by urban development, deforestation and overharvesting. Concerned herbalists across the country formed United Plant Savers (UpS) in 1993 to protect medicinal plants' habitat and encourage propagation of medicinal herbs in backyard gardens and other more civilized habitats. Katz, who serves on the UpS board, organized the conference with two other local herbalists who also serve on the board -- Christopher Hobbs and Richo Cech. "Williams is the new mecca for herbalists," quipped Hobbs, who has published more than a dozen books on herbs and herbal medicine. Hobbs said contemporary interest in herbs and herbal medicines traces its roots to the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and 70s. People began to study herbs and medicinal plants, he said, because they were dissatisfied with pharmaceutical drugs and concerned about unwanted side effects. Herbs have the advantage of remarkably few side effects, Katz said. "They don't always work, but they rarely do harm." At Saturday's conference, more than a dozen herbalists will describe strategies for ensuring a steady supply of wild medicinal plants. Speakers also will explain how to gather native wild plants without depleting the supply and save wild plant seeds for propagation. Hobbs said herbal medicines' growing popularity has encouraged big pharmaceutical companies to enter a market that traditionally belonged to small entrepreneurs. That puts additional pressure on some plants that already were threatened by overharvesting. Katz said more wild medicinal plants also are harvested every year to meet growing demand. Herbs such as goldenseal are harvested for consumers in the United States and other countries where local supplies have declined. Cech said many wild herbs cannot reproduce as fast as they are being harvested. Black cohosh, a root that provides a remedy for symptoms of menopause, is harvested by the thousands in the wild to produce Remifemin, a popular preparation which is manufactured in Germany. "There is no such thing as sustainable wild harvesting of black cohosh to fulfill world demand," Cech wrote in a recent UpS newsletter. "The future of black cohosh hangs in the balance on the hope that wild harvest will someday soon be supplanted by organic cultivation of this valuable herb." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA