Resources
New to the world of wild plant ingredients, or looking to deepen your understanding? Here is a selection of helpful resources.
Report and Action Plan following TRAFFIC’s ‘We Use Wild Forum on Wild Plant Ingredients’, October 2022
WildCheck and the We Use Wild Pledge
Organic (various standards exist such as the Soil Association and EU Organic)
Certificate of Origin (e.g. DOP/PDO, PGI, TCG)
Standards & Certification
A range of standards can be applied to wild plant ingredients, each with its own focus. Even if you are not currently pursuing certification, standards can act as a helpful reference of what best-practice looks like.
The Sustainable Herbs Program’s Sustainability and Regenerative Practices Toolkit
The Embedding Project, including a rich library of resources on specific areas of responsible sourcing
Ethical Trading Initiative’s Guide to Buying Responsibly
Responsible purchasing
General resources on responsible purchasing and supply chains.
Access and benefit sharing
Companies bear a legal obligation to receive prior informed consent for the use of traditional knowledge and resources, must negotiate agreements with “mutually agreed terms”, and must equitably share benefits – as set out in the Access and Benefit Sharing measures put in place following the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and the 2010 Nagoya Protocol.
This is a particularly relevant topic as many wild plant ingredients have important sociocultural ties to the communities that live alongside them. A number of best-practice guides exist:
FAO toolkit on Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC)
The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit-sharing online course
The FairWild Standard provides a best-practice guide on child labour in wild harvest activities
Slavery and child labour
The Global Living Wage Coalition provides a guide on living wages in various countries, which is a starting point to consider how the wild ingredients you purchase fit into harvesters’ overall income-earning activities
The Ethical Trading Initiative’s resources on living wage
Living wage
Do you have a resource you’d like to see included here?
Contact WildCheck@traffic.org