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Hong Vor of South Bend, Wash., holds several matsutake mushrooms found in the Umpqua National Forest near Chemult, Ore. Photo by The Associated Press.
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Mushroom Pickers Unite to Protect Forest in Oregon
By Gillian Flaccus
The Associated Press
It’s just above freezing outside. But inside a long makeshift tent dubbed “The Noodle House,” bowls of steaming soup and vegetable stir-fry add to the warmth seeping from a small wood stove.
On most nights, here in Crescent Junction, Ore., the dimly lit tent serves as a cozy gathering place for the several hundred Thai, Cambodian and Laotian pickers who camp out in central Oregon each fall to hunt the elusive and valuable matsutake mushroom, a Japanese delicacy. On this night, however, the casual chatter has turned into a roiling debate about Forest Service plans to log the best matsutake habitat around.
Matsutake harvesters have for years stayed out of the debate on federal forest management and timber sales. They prefer to quietly follow the mushroom crop south in a six-month migratory march from British Columbia to southern California.
But that isolationist mentality changed abruptly last fall when pickers spotted trees tagged for logging on 2,400 acres in the Deschutes National Forest — often considered the most fertile matsutake mushroom habitat in North America.
The resulting fear and dismay transformed the tent at the main campground from a laid-back gathering place to an impromptu debate hall. Now harvesters young and old meet at least once a week to discuss the fate of their prime mushrooms patches.
On a recent night, two dozen harvesters collected maps and Forest Service documents on proposed timber sales after listening to ranger Phil Cruz explain the need for thinning the trees.
“I’m interested in how the logging will affect the mushroom people. I heard that if the tree has been cut, the mushroom won’t grow,” said Nancy Souksavath, an 18-year-old picker who traveled from Denver with her family to pick matsutakes. “How will that affect the pickers in the future? Some people really depend on the mushrooms for a living.”
Collecting the white, fist-sized mushrooms is more than an idle pastime for thousands of harvesters — most of them low-income Southeast Asian families — who travel from forest to forest each summer and fall. The majority who descend on the national forests depend on the harvest for most of their income.
In one extraordinary year that is still the stuff of legends, the best matsutakes sold for nearly $300 a pound. Most years, however, prices from Japanese buyers stay below $25 a pound for top-grade mushrooms, with spikes of up to $35 a pound during the better seasons.
About 10 to 20 percent of the matsutakes sold annually to Japan come from the North American market, buyers estimate, and during a good year, pickers say they can net $10,000 in two months of 12-hour days. Pickers buy Forest Service permits for up to $200 that allow them to trek the forests with 25-pound buckets, searching for matsutakes.
Some keep up to 150 prime patches on global positioning systems, said Rick Bond, a forester who runs the matsutake permit program in the Chemult Ranger District.
“Mushroom pickers have to have a lot of patience. It’s a lot of walking and walking,” said Hong Vor, a 44-year-old picker who spends 10 months a year running a restaurant in South Bend, Wash., and two months a year hunting matsutakes. “Sometimes you look for 30 days and there’s nothing, and then there is one day that can make all the difference.”
But pickers, who have long made a point of distancing themselves from the Forest Service, are now concerned that without intervention there will be no matsutakes at all in large swaths of prime picking areas.
The pickers and local environmentalists, who are helping them, say logging will mean the end of matsutakes, which depend on a symbiotic relationship with the roots of firs and pines. Harvesters are concerned that logging equipment will tear up the mushrooms’ fragile root systems and permit sunlight, which will dry up the moist soil where the fungus grows best.
In an unprecedented move, harvesters met this spring with the Forest Service and signed a petition seeking reconsideration of the timber sales and inclusion in discussions about logging in matsutake habitat.
Cruz, the forest ranger, has since canceled part of one timber sale and placed others on hold while the two sides seek a compromise. In addition, for the first time last fall, the Forest Service extended the picking season in central Oregon by one week to make up for a bad season.
“Harvesters were just afraid to speak out. They didn’t seem to feel safe about doing that before,” said Katie Bagby, coordinator for Pacific West Community Forestry Center. “There’s certainly more speaking out now — and sometimes all at once. It’s very interesting.”
Cruz said he was surprised at the depth of concern and didn’t realize the planned timber sales covered prime picking areas. Before this year, he said, it was hard to get opinions of any kind.
“The concern was much more heartfelt than I had ever been able to judge before, because I didn’t get any feedback from the Anglos or Asians or any group whatsoever,” he said. “Progress is not made smoothly, it’s made in herks and jerks. I think we were going to get to this point eventually, but this spring it just kind of plopped itself in front of my face.”
At weekly meetings held at the pickers’ camp, Cruz said he and the harvesters have agreed on which logging sites would threaten the best matsutake patches and explored alternatives, such as helicopter logging or limited logging. The Forest Service recently took some pickers on a field trip to show them the impact of logging on the soil.
This collaborative approach grew from nothing in the mid-1980s to translation translation services and brochures in five languages.
“This is part of the new challenges the Forest Service has to face,” said Ranger Ray Romero. “It’s part of the transition of the Forest Service — there’s always a new public to serve.”
A logging decision that considers the pickers’ interests should come within weeks. But those representing the harvesters say they’re troubled the Forest Service didn’t consider the mushroom people earlier.
“This is a very important piece of people’s yearly income and they’re dependent on this resource in the forest,” Bagby said. “This is about people who have been marginalized.”
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