Foraging, the practice of gathering wild food including flowers, fruit, and fungi for free, has become increasingly popular in recent years.

It’s often viewed as a way to connect with nature and eat locally and seasonally.

But some people are breaking the law and collecting wild food in huge quantities to sell. At one park in Nottingham, commercial foragers have become such a threat to wildlife, including deer, that officials have introduced a total ban on foraging.

For the most part, it’s legal to pick food growing wild for personal consumption as long as you have the landowner’s permission (if on private land) and you don’t pick an endangered species.

But Wollaton Park says “excessive foraging” by some individuals has forced them to also ban those who do it merely as a hobby.

The park says the situation has become “intolerable” due to the loss of chestnuts, which are a vital food source for the deer, and the damage to mature trees “due to people trying to knock off chestnuts”.

“The deer are in their breeding season so they’ll use lots of energy, so the chestnuts will be full of energy for them and they [the chestnuts] will also feed some of the bigger birds, like the crows and the magpies, and all the squirrels,” Dr Aimee Brett, a senior lecturer at Nottingham Trent University, told Sky News.

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There have been sightings of people “collecting trolleys and carrier bags of chestnuts” and it’s thought these are being foraged to sell, perhaps to restaurants.

Lucy Buckle is a local foraging expert. She thinks the cost of living might be partly responsible for an increase in foraging, both commercial and legal.

Ms Buckle, 36, runs classes teaching others how to forage legally and sustainably, following her own decision to quit her job in a pharmacy to spend more time in nature.

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“It’s about connecting with nature, connecting with your local space and connecting with the food that we eat. It absolutely encourages a zero waste approach to food, a seasonality approach, and you diversify your diet so much,” she says.

“Foraging absolutely saves me money on my food bills each week. I don’t think it’s the answer to the cost of living, I don’t think everyone should be aiming to be 100% [eating] from the wild, but it can certainly help you save a few pennies here and there.”

Ms Buckle also cautions would-be foragers to get clued-up, especially if they’re collecting fungi.

“There are three options with mushrooms… delicious, deadly, or just disgusting.”

Ms Buckle has noticed a surge in the popularity of foraging as a hobby since the pandemic, and she’s disappointed by Wollaton Park’s ban.

“If we start to ban foraging on public land where we legally have the right to do so, my concern is where will that stop? Will we become a nation where nobody’s allowed to forage at all?”

She also questions the feasibility of policing the park, saying: “The people who’ve been foraging there for a long time, who’ve done it responsibly and sustainably, they won’t go there any more because they’ll want to follow the rules. The people that were doing it illegally and commercially and causing the damage are going to ignore the signs.”

The problem of commercial gathering is one facing public parks and landowners across the country.

At Epping Forest, they’ve found people collecting huge quantities of protected mushrooms. Thieves on this site have been prosecuted, including one person who tried to steal almost 50kg of fungi.

But there are still plenty of public spaces to forage legally, and the advice for anyone who wants to give it a try is to be careful not to trample around as you go and leave a good amount behind for wildlife which depends on the food.

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