Free-for-all on free food

This little local enterprise sources and supplies foraged foodstuffs. Here on a local market stall there are chutneys and vinegars made from hedgerow fruit and berries, wild flower cordials, wild garlic pesto, a variety of feral salad leaves and tasty nibbles fresh from the countryside. These things have become intensely popular in the last 10 years or so, following several TV series on wild food gathering and promotions by chefs who recommend foraged ingredients.

Anyone familiar with my blips will know that shellfish, fungi and wild plants regularly find their way into my pockets and I've always encouraged others to explore nature's larder - going out finding and identifying the stuff is part of the pleasure. It's a family preoccupation that goes back before I was born. But recently I've become concerned about the craze. Not people gathering for their own use, nor small businesses like this one which I am sure makes little impact upon the environment. However, as a result of all the exposure, wild food has been taken up by gourmet restaurants who make it a speciality that their customers expect to sample. How do they get hold of it?

Well, recently I encountered 3 people picking sea beet on the coast, just as I do. I stopped to chat then noticed that they had a dozen plastic bags stuffed full of leaves. It turned out they were picking it for a company that supplied a restaurant in Kent - right on the opposite side of the country. I was incensed: our Welsh sea beet being plundered for the fat cats of south-east England (in my imagination bankers, Tories and urban hipsters who never walked further than the car park); these irresponsible pickers making a money by collecting a wild plant that has probably long been picked out of existence on the Channel coast. They weren't impressed with my indignant protest of course and pointed out that they weren't breaking the law. They were taking only leaves, not uprooting the plant, and the landowner's permission is not required. I have checked on the law and there are very few circumstances under which the foragers can be prosecuted.

So I'm in a quandary. Is helping ourselves from the wild larder enterprising and resourceful or is it a practice that threatens plant and animal species that should be preserved and protected? I don't know the answer.

[Edit: I'm going to be experimenting with some of the processing effects provided by the new version of Picasa software that I use (free via Google). This one is HDR-ish but there are a bunch of other 'ishes' most of which I've never heard of and I'm looking forward to trying them out.]