The 20-foot tree stands half naked surrounded by the lush green of the forest. Stripped of its lifeline to nutrients and water, it only has months to live.
"It doesn't know it's dead," says David Taylor, a U.S. Forest Service botanist for the Daniel Boone National Forest, pointing overhead to the healthy leaves that pose a stark contrast to the rest of the tree's withering body.
This slippery elm has fallen victim to thieves who tore off its bark for profit in the ever-popular herbal remedy market.
The gummy lining of the tree's bark has long been used in North America, and especially Appalachia, as a soothing agent for coughs, gastrointestinal ailments and skin irritations. However, experts say a growing interest in herbal products is exhausting many native plants like slippery elm - once used seasonally by locals, now in demand by millions.
"I think that trend is going to put pressure on limited resources such as the slippery elm," said Dr. Michael Hirt, founding director for the Center for Integrative Medicine in Tarzana, Calif.
Added John Garrison, a National Park Service spokesman for the Blue Ridge Parkway: "There's a huge market in botanicals going into herbal medicines. Virtually everything on public lands has a market."
Dietary supplements, which include the subcategory of herbal supplements and remedies, are a $23 billion industry, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Some 62 percent of Americans use some form of complimentary or alternative medicine, which includes a variety of therapies, from acupuncture and meditation to herbal remedies and folk medicine. About 20 percent use some form of natural products.
The herbal industry credits natural remedies and supplements as a cheaper, and usually safer, alternative to pharmaceuticals - especially for mild ailments.
"A lot of people have become disillusioned with the safety of pharmaceuticals and the associated high cost," said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of the American Botanical Council.
Blumenthal and Hirt cited drugs such as Vioxx, an arthritis medication linked to dangerous side effects and pulled from the market in 2004, as examples of pharmaceuticals that have turned off many Americans to synthetic prescriptions.
Even so, herbals also have their share of problems. For example, ephedra, a natural stimulant often sold as pills or tablets usually taken for weight loss and more energy, was banned by the federal Food and Drug Administration after being linked to deaths.
But the interest in herbal products remains strong, fueling many to poach plants in the wild to turn a profit.
In the past, forest and park officials have had to battle thieves snatching a variety of botanicals, most commonly American ginseng - thought to fight fatigue and stress-related ailments.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park officials recently teamed up with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture to mark ginseng roots with a permanent dye and transponder strips to track illegally picked ginseng.
In the case of the slippery elm, officials at the U.S. Forest Service are relying on locals to alert them to illegal stripping.
Slippery elms are native to North America and can be found from Canada to Texas, generally growing around cool, wet areas, like creek beds. Authorities say the prime season for stealing is mid-June and early July, when the bark is mucilaginous and easy to peel.
Since the wood of the slippery elm has no commercial value, the stripped trees are left to die. About a dozen trees face that fate for each 50-pound of sack of bark, which fetches about $35 if the bark is wet, $150 if it's dry.
"You've got some old mountain boys who know the trees, know the terrain," said Officer Barry Bishop, with the federal Forest Service, about the half dozen suspects the Daniel Boone Forest has arrested this summer.
"If you find enough trees, it's not going to take long to get a few pounds," added Taylor. "It's a quick buck."
The demand for the bark has landed the tree on a protection list by the Ohio-based National Center for the Preservation of Medicinal Herbs, a nonprofit which researches safe ways to grow and replenish medicinal botanicals, such as ginseng, blood root and black cohosh.
While the Forest Service issues permits for the harvesting some plants, such as ginseng, it does not permit any type of bark removal because it cripples trees.
"It's not a life-saving herb that's worth destroying forests over," Hirt said.
Armando Gonzalez-Stuart, a researcher who studies herbal medicine at the University of Texas El Paso/Austin Cooperative Pharmacy Program, said the best option is for herbal industry to cultivate the trees responsibly on private property. If the bark is harvested in a sustainable manner, the trees are more likely to survive for future harvesting.
Private cultivation has worked for other popular botanicals. To keep up with market demands and prevent illegal poaching, most of the ginseng in the United States is cultivated for herbal products at private farms in Wisconsin, Gonzalez-Stuart said.
Similarly, gingko biloba - used to treat circulatory disorders and enhance memory - is being cultivated by private companies in Wyoming.
"Stealing isn't good and these trees are a valuable resource," Hirt said. "Because it's not saving patients from cancer or heart attacks, I think we have to be even more careful about how we manage that type of resource."Associated Press via Lexington Herald-Leader
