Reader\'s Digest Canada - 10.2019

off. In some spots, though, the stems

and leaves had been neatly tucked

back into the soil, as if to cover up the

massacre. Some of the plants were now

the standing dead. Nearby, the offi-

cers noticed a clue: lying face up on

the forest floor, half-shaded by sugar

maples, the red of an empty pack of

DK’s cigarettes flickered in the scat-

tered sunlight.

Federal and provincial authorities

launched an operation to catch the

poachers. Jean-François Dubois, a fed-

eral wildlife-enforcement officer, had

motion-sensor surveillance cameras

installed. He also dispatched patrols

and marked the roots with an ultra-

violet, traceable dye. Then two officers

on their regular patrol got lucky. They

spotted a truck parked about two kilo-

metres from the poaching site with a

pack of DK’s lying on the seat. It wasn’t

long before Michael Allison and Rus-

sell Jacobs hiked out of the trees carry-

ing 253 ginseng roots that could have

fetched tens of thousands of dollars.

wild american ginseng, or Panax quin-

quefolius, thrives in subtlety. Its wil-

lowy stem, with finely serrated green

leaves, can grow to knee height, and

its ghost-white flowers blend in more

than stand out in a forest’s under-

storey. The easiest time to find the

herb is in late summer through early

fall, when it bursts with blazing crim-

son berries, a siren song to poachers

who scour the forests of Ontario and

Quebec for the elusive and valuable

plant. A pound of wild ginseng root

can fetch $800 or more on the black

market for use in traditional Chinese

medicine. Since 2008, wild ginseng

has been listed as endangered under

the Ontario Endangered Species Act

and as threatened under Quebec’s

Loi sur les espèces menacées ou vul-

nérables since 2001.

According to a report by Interpol

and the United Nations, the movement

of wildlife products is now the fourth-

largest illegal trade in the world,

behind counterfeit, drugs and humans.

Poaching and trafficking are explod-

ing as prices soar. In the past decade,

the Canadian government has gone

to extraordinary lengths to protect spe-

cies, employing close to 75 enforcement

officers across the country and coordin-

ating international operations to catch

perpetrators. Between 2017 and 2018,

officers conducted almost 5,000 inspec-

tions and 114 new investigations.

But the threat to wild ginseng

reminds us that it’s not just parts of

elephants, bears and tigers feeding our

gluttonous appetites. If the illegal wild-

life trade values both large and small,

both charismatic and uncharismatic,

why, then, don’t we?

it’s not a ghost anymore, Dubois

thought the day he stumbled upon his

first wild American ginseng plant in

Quebec. “It took me four or five years

to find,” he says.

reader’s digest

78 october 2019