Authorities will not curb Czechs’ passion for mushroom hunting
Mushroom picking and foraging forest fruits is something of a national pastime in Czechia. Indeed, Czechs harvested nearly 39,000 tonnes of forest fruits worth almost eight billion crowns last year, and six out of ten Czechs visited the forest at least once a month.
For most Czechs, the summer holidays are associated with spending time in the forest, collecting mushrooms and berries. They eat them fresh or store them for later, drying the mushrooms or pickling them in vinegar and processing the fruits into marmalades and jams.
According to data from the Czech University of Agriculture, the amount of mushrooms collected last year increased by a quarter, while the amount of raspberries, blackberries or cranberries harvested fell by tens of percent.
Agriculture Minister Marek Výborný says it could be partly related to the bark-beetle calamity, but it is mostly due to the weather:
“In forests affected by bark beetle, certain types of berries can disappear for a certain period of time. But the key thing that plays a role here is the weather. Some years, you don’t get enough moisture or enough heat. However, if we look at the numbers and the trends over the long term, they remain more or less the same.”
Unlike many other countries, Czechia has no restrictions on access to the forests or on harvesting forest fruits. Mr. Výborný says the ministry has no plans to change that. Nevertheless, he appealed on the public to value that freedom and behave accordingly.
“There are countries that restrict access to forests or restrict the possibility of collecting forest fruits. There are countries where you can only go mushroom picking on certain days of the week, like Switzerland. There are also countries with restrictions on the number of kilograms you can take from the forest. We certainly do not want to go down that route.”
A report by the Czech University of Agriculture shows that every household that went foraging to the forest last year collected on average eight kilos of mushrooms and nearly three and a half kilos of blueberries. This might suggest that some people have turned forest foraging into a profitable business. However, minister Výborný insists on keeping things the way they are:
“There are clear restrictions in place here in the national parks, which will be maintained. You cannot pick blueberries or other forest fruits in the first zones of a national park.
“To place further restrictions on berry harvesting makes no sense to me. They are gifts of the forest, so it is right that we should be able to use them in the same way as we generally use forests, for example, for recreational purposes. I believe that is the right thing to do.”
