Full disclosure: Yes, I was that guy a few years back (8+ years now!) who was fined $50 by a M-NCPPC police officer for “destroying/interfering with plants to wit: berries. Without a permit on park property.” The charge made local waves and garnered a few local media hits, thanks primarily to author, lawyer, professor and Reason Foundation Senior Fellow Baylen Linnekin’s initial article for Reason.com:
So it was with some degree of surprise that Visscher found himself confronted last month by a trio of county park police officers and handed a $50 ticket for “destroying/interfering with plants to wit: berries. Without a permit on park property.
Thankfully, yes, I beat the “charge”. The ridiculous allegation of “berry damage” on M-NCPPC property was thrown out within minutes of going in front of a judge down at the old courthouse in Rockville, MD.
Yep, I did get out of the “jam”, as Fox 5 DC cleverly put it that October. They sure loved their witty puns in covering that case.
And now, in an ironic and frankly amusing turn of events, I get to report that M-NCPPC and specifically its Prince George’s and MoCo County Park Department proxies, are actively promoting food and “resource” foraging via park programs at various local park properties.
The “Fundamentals of Foraging” (image above from https://www.mncppc.org/calendar.aspx?eid=18291) was first offered by M-NCPPC in the spring of last year. The parks and planning commission then offered offered “Foraging 2.0” in May of that year. “Take your knowledge of foraging and its history to the next level! Foraging 2.0 is a continuation of the Fundamental of Foraging course. Build skills to become confident with identifying and finding foraged foods out in nature.” But were M-NCPPC police officers be on hand to observe and ensure no “damage to plants”?
The funnier, more close to home ironic example (the above examples were put on by M-NCPPC, but at a Prince George’s County park in Upper Marlboro) comes from the montgomeryparks.org website and calendar (screen shot below):
Yes, “Shelter Building for Women and Non-Binary Individuals”, coming to you on October 15, 2023 at Meadowside Nature Center in Rockville, MD. Certainly “foraging for natural materials” to build a shelter of your own would involve some potential damage to native plants or trees, right?
But overall, I am very glad to see M-NCPPC has “turned a new leaf” with regard to wild food and “resource” foraging. It is about time. As author Baylen Linnekin put it so succinctly several years ago:
But banning foraging outright makes no sense, particularly when it means prohibiting the picking of perennial fruits like raspberries that would otherwise go to waste. A blanket ban on foraging is a bad idea that takes the public out of public parks.
