Harvesting of Salep Orchids in North-Western Greece Continues to Threaten Natural Populations

Harvesting of salep orchids in north-western Greece continues to threaten natural populations

A NNA K REZIOU,HUGO DE B OER and B ARBARA G RAVENDEEL

Abstract In several eastern Mediterranean countries orchis used mainly in a beverage known as salepi, which is sold in ids are collected from the wild for the production of salep, local markets and is popular as a warming drink during the a beverage made of dried orchid tubers. The drivers of this winter (Starin, ). Before the introduction of coffee the collection and trade have changed over time. We investi- salep beverage was a common drink in Europe (Landerer, gated which genera and species are harvested for salep pro- ), but now it is consumed mainly in Greece (Starin, duction, whether any cultivation takes place, the chain of ) and Turkey (Sezik, ; Bulpitt, ). commercialization, and the economic value of tuber collec- Although synthetic alternatives to salep exist, such as cer- tion. Fieldwork and interviews in north-western Greece in- eal starch or carboxymethyl-cellulose (Tamer et al., ), cluded  collectors and street vendors, the owners of two the demand for orchid tubers remains high among those companies, and one herbal shop. The results show that sev- seeking authentic salep (Kasparek & Grimm, ). Sezik eral orchid species are traded for the production of salep, () estimated the annual harvest of genuine salep in and none are cultivated. Tubers collected in Greece, Turkey to be as much as  t. To produce  kg of salep Albania and Turkey are sold in northern Greece for EUR ,–, tubers, each representing an individual plant, – per kg on average. Recent catalysts such as the in- are required (Kasparek & Grimm, ), and this suggests creasing demand for traditional, organic and alternative that – million plants are harvested annually in foodstuffs, and the  economic downturn, have led to Turkey alone. In Iran, it is estimated that .–. million a revival of salep consumption, with an increasing number orchids are harvested annually, mainly for export to of salep harvesters from Greece and Albania scouring the Turkey (Ghorbani et al., a). mountains for harvestable tubers, using unsustainable har- Orchid use in Greece dates back several millennia. In vesting practices. Historia Plantarum Theophrastus (– BC) attributed medicinal properties to orchid species, and in De Materia Keywords CITES, medicinal plants, northern Greece, Medica Dioscorides (– AD) ascribed healing properties orchids, salep, sustainability, traditional ecological to two terrestrial orchids based on the resemblance of their knowledge (TEK) tubers to testicles (Berliocchi, ; Bulpitt, ). In the s salep harvesting by Albanians and Aromanians rchids have a history of use in many cultures. They are (Vlachs) was widespread in Greece, and salepi was a winter Oa significant source of nourishment, and many species staple among the working classes (Landerer, ). Modern are used as aphrodisiacs (Bulpitt, ). In Tanzania, uses of orchids, and salepi in particular, are still based on Zambia and Malawi, for example, tubers of terrestrial orch- these ancient traditions. ids are used in making a staple food called chikanda In Greece the Orchidaceae family is represented by (Davenport & Ndangalasi, ; Veldman et al., ). In c. – taxa, depending on species concepts (Delforge, the eastern Mediterranean, dried tubers of terrestrial orch- ; Petrou et al., ), and all orchids are protected ids are known as salep, which also refers to ground tuber under presidential decree /, national law /, powder and the beverage made from this powder. Salep is and national law /, which enacts CITES. used in ice-cream production, confectionery and beverages We conducted structured interviews with harvesters, (Kasparek & Grimm, ; Tamer et al., ). In Greece it tradersandusersoforchidtubersin villages in Grevena, Ioannina, Kozani and Thessaloniki prefectures, in the Epirus, West and Central Macedonia regions of

ANNA KREZIOU Argonafton 30, Thessaloniki, Greece Greece (Fig. ). Local informants, eight women and  – HUGO DE BOER*† and BARBARA GRAVENDEEL‡ (Corresponding author) Naturalis men aged years, were interviewed in the spring Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands and summer of  and .Inaddition,fieldvisits E-mail [email protected] were made to the collection areas to record species *Also at: Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden diversity, abundance and harvesting procedures. †Also at: The Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, Norway ‡Also at: University of Applied Sciences Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands Relevant literature and herbarium specimens of local Received  January . Revision requested  February . orchids were consulted, and all information pertaining to Accepted  February . First published online  April . traditional use of salep was recorded (Lazarides, ;

Oryx, 2016, 50(3), 393–396 © 2015 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605315000265 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.33.14, on 01 Oct 2021 at 02:51:36, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605315000265 394 A. Kreziou et al.

TABLE 1 Orchid species collected in northern Greece for salep, with past and present reported uses.

Reported use 2010–2015 Species 1850–1993 (this study) Anacamptis Food & strengthening None coriophora (Landerer, 1850) Anacamptis morio Food & strengthening None (Landerer, 1850) Anacamptis Food & strengthening None papilionacea (Landerer, 1850) Anacamptis Not specified (Lazarides, Beverage, pyramidalis 1986) medicinal Dactylorhiza None Beverage, sambucina medicinal Dactylorhiza None Beverage, saccifera medicinal Ophrys spp. Medicinal (Vokou et al., None 1993) Orchis Food & strengthening None FIG. 1 Ioannina, Grevena, Kozani and Thessaloniki prefectures anthropophora (Landerer, 1850) in Greece, where interviews were conducted with harvesters, Orchis italica Food & strengthening None traders and users of orchid tubers. (Landerer, 1850) Orchis mascula Food & strengthening Beverage, (Landerer, 1850) medicinal Orchis militaris Not specified (Lazarides, Beverage, Vokou et al., ; Kasparek & Grimm, ; Tamer et al., 1986) medicinal ; Petrou et al., ). Orchis provincialis Not specified (Lazarides, Beverage, We found that several species in the genera Anacamptis, 1986) medicinal Dactylorhiza and Orchis are collected for the production of Orchis simia None Beverage, salep (Table ). Various stages in salep harvesting, proces- medicinal  Orchis spp. Medicinal (Vokou et al., None sing and consumption are shown in Plate . At the time of 1993) harvesting, each plant has one old tuber, which has already yielded a flowering plant, and one new perennating tuber, which will yield the next year’s plant. The old tuber is scab- rous and wrinkled, whereas the new one is fleshy and A key informant collected salep and sold it as a hot bev- plump. In most cases collectors harvest the tubers when erage during the winter months from a mobile stall in one of the plant has finished flowering but before it sets seed, the ski areas in northern Greece. He estimated to use up to which limits regeneration in wild populations. All infor-  g of ground salep per day to prepare  cups of hot salep mants reported collecting the young fresh tuber only; beverage. The street vendors that we interviewed in mostly, the old shrunken tuber is discarded. Three of the in- Thessaloniki obtained dried, unground orchid tubers from formants also reported that a trade in orchids takes place middlemen in the trade of tubers from neighbouring across the border with Albania. All collectors claimed not Albania and Turkey. One of the vendors estimated using to be aware that collecting is forbidden, but most expressed c.  kg of raw tubers per year in the production of hot interest in maintaining plant populations because they rea- salep beverage. The owner of a company specializing in lized that overharvesting can be detrimental. the trade of local herbs and spices in Kozani had started In the past, orchid tubers were collected in northern trading salep only  years previously; he reported buying tu- Greece to make salep beverages and a gelatin for porridge, bers from collectors in northern Greece, most of whom did and these were a staple consumed by the working classes not reveal their exact harvesting areas or locations. He esti- (Landerer, ). Nowadays, the most popular form of mated he had sold  kg of ground salep in  and had salep is the hot beverage, and the main medicinal uses are paid collectors EUR – per kg for salep of Greek origin. to soothe the throat, as a remedy for colds and coughing, He also noted an increase in demand year by year as the and to ease stomach ache and intestinal cramps. In popularity of salep drinks increases. The owner of a herb Thessaloniki patisseries prepare dondurma ice cream and spice shop in downtown Thessaloniki informed us using powdered salep, and several pharmacies sell a com- that the unpackaged salep he sells is collected in the mercial brand of salep-based lozenges and syrup. Grammos mountains. He also reported selling only salep

PLATE 1 Freshly collected tubers of Dactylorhiza sambucina from Zagorohoria (a) and Grevena (b); tubers of Dactylorhiza sambucina left to dry in Distrato (c); dried tubers for home use in a village in Grevena (d); ground salep in Distrato (e); and salep beverage for sale near a ski centre (f).

harvested in Greece. Another company operating in the Grimm, ) and Iran (Ghorbani et al., b), probably Greek domestic market sold ground salep mixed with following overharvesting of the more desired genera corn starch and common spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg Anacamptis and Orchis. Several species used in the past and cloves. The packaging labels claimed that the salep was for salep production have become more rare in recent dec- sourced from cultivated stock but we found no evidence for ades as a result of overharvesting. Several species of Ophrys this. Based on information from informants we established have been added to the IUCN Red List (IUCN, ), poss- that packaged salep may retail for up to EUR  per kg ibly spurred by the use of additional species for salep (based on a price of EUR − for − g). production. The renewed popularity of salep is driven by consumer The collectors that we followed in the field left only a demand for traditional, organic and alternative food but few smaller plants standing during collecting. In most consumers may not realize that traditional products can cases there were holes in the ground, indicating that contain threatened wildlife. Landerer () reported vari- other collectors had already been to the area. In the ous salep species in the genera Anacamptis and Orchis, s Landerer reported that the main harvesting season and reported that these occurred abundantly in Thessaly was the autumn, when the meadows and terraces were and Macedonia (Table ). Vokou et al. () reported the tilled, and the orchids had set seed and wilted. He also use of species of Ophrys and Orchis but mentioned no spe- wrote that the tubers were selected by size, and many of cific species of either genus. We discovered that seven spe- the smaller tubers were replanted to promote regrowth. cies of three genera, Anacamptis, Dactylorhiza and Orchis, Sumpter et al. () provided experimental evidence of are used for the production of salep in northern Greece. the regenerative capacity of old orchid tubers. We recorded The use of Dactylorhiza has not been reported previously neither dispersal of young tubers nor replanting of old in Greece, but it has been reported in Turkey (Kasparek & tubers.

The annual harvests of thousands of  kg (centner) units ENTWISTLE, A., ATAY, S., BYFIELD,A.&OLDFIELD,S.() of salep reported in the s (Landerer, ) no longer Alternatives for the bulb trade from Turkey: a case study of  – occur, as orchids have become rare and remaining popula- indigenous bulb propagation. Oryx, , . GHORBANI, A., GRAVENDEEL, B., NAGHIBI,F.&DE BOER, H.J. (a) tions have lost resilience to such harvesting pressure (Petrou Wild orchid tuber collection in Iran: a wake-up call for conservation. et al., ). The number of fresh orchid tubers harvested per Biodiversity and Conservation, , –. kg of salep is estimated to be – (Ghorbani et al., GHORBANI, A., GRAVENDEEL, B., ZARRE,S.&DE BOER, H.J. (b) a). In Iran, where an orchid collection boom is threat- Illegal wild collection and international trade of CITES-listed  terrestrial orchid tubers in Iran. TRAFFIC Bulletin, , –. ening wild populations, an estimated million tubers are   HAWKES, A.D. ( ) Economic importance of the Orchidaceae. II. harvested annually (Ghorbani et al., a). American Orchid Society Bulletin, , –. The increasing popularity of traditional, organic food IUCN () IUCN Red List of Threatened Species v. .. Http:// provides much-needed opportunities for an alternative www.iucnredlist.org/ [accessed  March ]. source of income for the people of north-western Greece. KASPAREK,M.&GRIMM,U.() European trade in Turkish salep  – Salep can be produced sustainably, and the species of orch- with special reference to Germany. Economic Botany, , . LANDERER,X.() Naturgeschichte und Pharmakognosie. Beiträge ids that yield the best salep (Orchis mascula, Orchis militaris zur Pharmakognosie. Ueber Salep und die Salepisiden. Archiv der  and Anacamptis morio; Hawkes, ) can be cultivated Pharmazie, , –. (Seaton & Ramsay, ). Local propagation and sustain- LAZARIDES,K.() Botanical and Folk Elements of the Flora of My able cultivation alleviate harvesting pressure on wild orchids Village Koukouli, Zagori and of the Vikos Gorge. Ioannina, Greece. but subsequent trade poses challenges in the context of MCGOUGH, H.N., KIKODZE, D., WILFORD, R., GARRETT, L., DEISADZE, G., JAWORSKA,N.&SMITH, M.J. () Assessing national and international legislation, such as CITES   non-detrimental trade for a CITES Appendix II-listed plant species: (Entwistle et al., ; McGough et al., ). Our survey re- the status of wild and cultivated Galanthus woronowii in Georgia. vealed ongoing and increasing collection of wild orchids, Oryx, , –. and we are now informing local authorities of the implica- PETROU, N., PETROU,M.&GIANNAKOULIAS,M.() Orchids of tions of commercialization of salep products. We are also Greece. Koan Publishing House, Athens, Greece.  working with collectors who expressed an interest in pilot- SEATON,P.&RAMSAY,M.( ) Growing Orchids from Seed. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London, UK. ing small-scale cultivation, and companies interested in sus- SEZIK,E.() Turkish orchids and salep. Acta Pharmaceutica tainably cultivated salep, to provide expertise on seed Turcica, , –. collecting, propagation and cultivation. Subsequent ques- SEZIK,E.() Destroying of Ophrys species to obtain salep in tions about commercialization within the framework of Turkey. Journal Europäischer Orchideen, , .  national legislation have not yet been addressed. STARIN,D.( ) Salepi extinction, salepi survival: how a change in ingredients could help safeguard orchids. Orchids, , –. SUMPTER, J.P., D’AYALA, R., PARFITT, A.J., PRATT,P.&RAPER,C.  Acknowledgements ( ) The current status of military (Orchis militaris) and monkey (Orchis simia) orchids in the Chilterns. Watsonia, , –.  We thank all informants for sharing their knowledge. In ad- TAMER, C.E., KARAMAN,B.&COPUR, O.U. ( ) A traditional Turkish beverage: salep. Food Reviews International, , –. dition we acknowledge the staff of the Lazarides Folklore VELDMAN, S., OTIENO, J.N., VAN ANDEL, T., GRAVENDEEL,B.&DE Museum in Koukouli for their assistance, Erik-Jan Bosch BOER, H.J. () Efforts urged to tackle thriving illegal orchid trade for creating Fig. , and Socrates Tsouplakis for creating in Tanzania and Zambia for chikanda production. TRAFFIC Fig. . Bulletin, , –. VOKOU, D., KATRADI,K.&KOKKINI,S.() Ethnobotanical survey of Zagori (Epirus, Greece), a renowned centre of folk medicine in References the past. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, , –.

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