A new global initiative has launched, which aims to support a more sustainable supply chain for flora cultivated outside the industrial farming system.
Spearheaded by TRAFFIC, the Wild Harvest Improvement Project (WHIP) is a partnership between Biodiversify, the Global Diversity Foundation, MBLA, and FairWild. Funding is provided by the UK Government via the Darwin Initiative.
Pilots have already been conducted in Morocco, focusing on organ kernels, with a second aiming to safeguard liquorice roots in Uzbekistan. Both show the potential to roll this out to more territories, and more species, helping local producers stitch to community-led governance and equitable trade of many ingredients commonly found in British kitchen and medicine cabinets.
‘Sustainability in wild harvesting is not achieved by walking away from these supply chains. The people who know these species best are the people harvesting them, and they need a route that recognises the progress they are already making,’ said Cara Flowers, Sustainable Supply Chain Manager at TRAFFIC. ‘A WHIP ensures these species remain a critical part of their ecosystems while helping the people who harvest them earn a dignified living. That is a commercial argument as much as a conservation one.’
“Every business both depends on nature and affects it, and each has a chance to help protect it in ways that also reduce their own long-term risk,’ said Caitlin Schindler, Principal Consultant at Biodiversify. The ingredients companies know least about are often the ones they are most exposed to. Wild harvest sits outside the plantation and the farm gate, so it rarely shows up in supply chain data until a species, or a community’s livelihood, is already in trouble. What makes WHIP different is that it gives a company a credible first step instead of an unreachable standard.’
Image: yashwant kashyap / Unsplash
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