An Open Letter to Milwaukee County Parks: On Foraging in Public Parks

Hello Dear Friends of Milwaukee County Parks,

I recently received an email from Special Events Manager for the Milwaukee County Parks, Andrew Krueger as shared here:

I am grateful for you reaching out.

I’d like to say thank you for the work you are doing to provide natural space for the residents of Milwaukee. Milwaukee County Parks Natural Areas manages over 10,000 acres of forests, prairies, and grasslands — protecting vital landscapes that support our region’s environmental health. Our values are deeply in alignment that these parks enrich the lives of every person in the community and serve as vital habitat for our non-human community of plants and animals. I am very much a supporter of the public parks system in Milwaukee and all cities across the nation.

You have written to me to share that foraging is not permitted within Milwaukee County Parks System per Milwaukee County Ordinance 47.08.

I am aware of this ordinance. As it states:
47.08 (2) Protection of Nature.

(a) No person shall harvest, collect, deface, or disturb, in any manner, any portion of a native plant or native fungi within the Park System. Exceptions are made for DPRC staff, and individuals, groups, or entities authorized, through written permission from the DPRC, who are conducting land management or scientific research activities for ecological restoration, trail maintenance, or public safety.

(b) The removal of species within the Park System that the DPRC designates as invasive species can be removed or controlled by DPRC staff or individuals, groups, or entities authorized through written permission from the DPRC.

(4) Penalties. For any individual, group, or entity violating any component of section 47.08 a minimum fee of $100.00 will be levied for each violation and the responsible party will also be required to pay 100 percent of all ecological restoration costs associated with mitigating the damage the DPRC determines has been done to the Park System’s natural resources.

I am writing this open letter to publicly state that this is an ordinance that I have intentionally chosen not to follow in past visits to Milwaukee, and will continue to not follow.

Although I am not following Ordinance 47.08, I believe at the core level we are in alignment and that my reasons may be understood by you. I request a few minutes of your time to explain my position here.

First, I give all the benefit of the doubt that Ordinance 47.08 is designed to serve all residents of Milwaukee in an equitable manner. Yet, as this may be the intention, the ordinance is actually a disservice to many people.
I will expand and, in the summary of this letter, I will submit my recommendation to amend this ordinance.

To give full clarity on the event that I am planning, it is a walk through the park that is free for all residents to attend. In this walk, I will teach the attendees about many of the common plants growing in Humboldt Park and throughout much of the region. The focus will be particularly on plants that are edible and medicinal. I will teach how to identify, harvest and eat these plants. Indeed, I am teaching the residents how to forage. Through a relationship with these plants and through foraging, my objective is to help these Milwaukee residents to connect more deeply with this land and to become stewards and caretakers of the parks and lands that they visit. As I see it, foraging is a gateway for reconnection with Earth.

The plants we will be focusing on include:

The “weeds” that grow in the lawns and are mowed over by Milwaukee County Parks. This includes dandelion, plantago, clover, oxalis and ground ivy.

The aggressive non-native plants or “invasive weeds” that Milwaukee County Parks staff and The Park People Weed-Out Program are actively removing. This includes garlic mustard, dame’s rocket, burdock, wild parsnip and buckthorn. I will teach how to harvest these plants as food and medicine, while contributing to the shared mission of removing invasive plants from the parks.

You may be interested in learning about the concept of being an ‘invasivore’, which is a person who focuses on harvesting invasive plants for their diet, or the concept of “foraging against the invasion”. These are viable solutions that align with your work as stated on your website: “Milwaukee County Parks contain most of the county’s remaining natural areas. These valuable areas are seriously threatened by aggressive non-native plants referred to as ‘invasive weeds’. Invasive weeds can dominate an area so completely that they crowd out native wildflowers, shrubs and even trees. When the native plants are gone, so are the wildlife that depend on them.” “Invasive species displace native species, reduce biodiversity, degrade wildlife habitat, and factor into the decline of threatened and endangered species.”

I will be encouraging all attendees of the Foraging Walk to volunteer with The Park People Weed-Out Program.

Although my focus is on “weeds” and invasive plants, I will also teach about common fruits and nuts such as mulberry, wild grape, crab apple, hawthorn and black walnuts. I wholeheartedly believe that it is a human right to harvest these foods and that it aligns with any city’s desires to reduce food insecurity and support the health of their residents.

As you know, food insecurity is a substantial issue in Milwaukee. According to Feeding America there are 147,000 food insecure citizens of Milwaukee County, 15.4 percent of the population. Foraging is part of the solution to this as it provides nutritiously dense food.

The plants I will NOT be teaching to forage are any plants that are rare, threatened or that, through harvesting, would harm the ecosystem and community of life which depends upon this space.

I warmly invite all employees of Milwaukee County Parks to join us in this Foraging Walk. I would joyfully give the floor to a representative of Milwaukee County Parks and The Park People Weed-Out Program to share about the work being done to remove aggressive non-native plants from the parks and to invite all attendees to volunteer as “Weed-Out Warriors”. I also offer to lead a foraging class specifically for the employees of Milwaukee County Parks (free of charge, of course).

While this may all sound agreeable, you may still think that there is not enough for all residents to forage within the parks. Would not the parks be harmed if there was equitable access to foraging for all? This is a common remark that I hear. But it is not the remark of an informed forager and almost always is the remark of a person who does not forage. What I have consistently found, having hosted many Foraging Walks in cities across the nation, is that foragers are not takers. They are givers. We want to give to the land that gives to us. We want this food and medicine to be available to our family, our community and our greater community of plants and animals. We want this to be here for generations to come. The more we forage, the more we deepen our connection to Earth and become stewards of this home. This has been the case for humans expanding deep into our history and is still the case today.

My recommendation to Milwaukee County Parks is to change Ordinance 47.08 to specifically allow and encourage foraging within the parks, with no written permission needed, with a focus on the aggressive non-native plants or “invasive weeds” as well as other “weeds”. There are many cities across the United States which allow foraging within our public parks and I, along with many others, welcome Milwaukee to join these cities.

I will make myself fully available to support you in this endeavor.

In service to Earth, humanity and our plant and animal relatives,
Robin Greenfield