60 PERSPECTIVES ON BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS | VOL 42 | 2024 and ICARDA have been training rural cooperatives on leadership, engagement, and marketing as well as certifying health and food safety through ONSSA, the Moroccan public office in charge of food safety. With new confidence and entrepreneurial skills from training and health and safety certifications, cooperatives can confidently sell their products outside their local markets, increasing profit (ICARDA Communication Team, 2022). Regulating foraging One of the biggest reasons overharvesting occurs is lack of regulation of public lands, which results in a tragedy of the commons (Lamrani-Alaoui & Hassikou, 2018). In that scenario, proposed by Garrett Hardin, the constructed social system encourages individuals to acquire as much as possible without considering the effects on others and the community (Hardin, 1968). His example is a communal sheep-grazing pasture: each herder who uses the pasture takes advantage of the abundant shared resource, allowing their sheep to eat as much as they can. Because each herder has this same mindset, the resource is ultimately completely used up, with no grass left for any of the herders. Hardin’s tragedy of the commons reflects foraging practices seen in Morocco and around the world. Foragers see the plants as resources that bring income and that the more that are harvested, the more money they can make. Regulating collection amounts from harvesters would allow for the regrowth of MAPs to occur sustainably. In US national parks, regulations are established to limit the number of wild plants that can be taken, allowing the gathering of wild plants and at the same time encouraging regrowth and reproduction. As an example, the US National Park Service (USNPS) established rules and guidelines for foraging in Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. It is prohibited for any of the rare or dangerous plants to be collected, but other plants, including most fruit, berries, and nuts, are allowed to be foraged, with limits. For example, maximum collections of eight gallons of apples and one gallon of hickory nuts per person per day are allowed (Shenandoah National Park, 2022). There are exceptions to these regulations for people indigenous to the land. Tribes can apply for a plant-gathering agreement for species important to their cultural practices (USNPS, 2023). Such exceptions allow for the recognition of traditional practices. The guidelines laid out by the USNPS are examples of what could be adopted in Moroccan national parks. The USNPS has partnered with Morocco to help support the establishment of multiple national parks, including the Great Basin National Park and Toubkal National Park. This partnership allows the United States to share knowledge and resources for drafting harvesting regulations in Moroccan parks (US Embassy…, 2016). In Morocco, this could mean placing maximums on certain species and preventing collection of others on public or protected land. These regulations, as in the USNPS, would be seasonal, and decisions based on which foraging practices would promote optimal regrowth for each species. The National Agency for Water and Forests (n.d.) is responsible for management of much of the public and protected land. This agency has the power to draft regulations for protected land, similar to those seen in the USNPS. Because access to traditional medicine is a concern in rural areas, allowing for cultural exceptions for medicinal purposes would be an important component in these regulations. Ultimately, the number of plants sourced in the wild would be limited for industrial resale, even though allowed for traditional uses. Difficulties in enforcing these regulations on a large scale, however, cannot be ignored. Adding park rangers or staff to periodically survey natural areas would ensure regulations are enforced. This approach limits the potential for profit in rural communities and emphasizes the importance of reducing environmental impact. Conclusion The diversity of landscapes in Morocco allows for a rich concentration of plants unique to the region. Included in these plant species are copious MAPs that are important to rural health care and income. Because of inadequate modern resources, rural communities rely on medicinal plants as a primary means of health care, and a threat to these plants is subsequently a threat to rural health care. With growing demand for MAPs around the world for medicine, cosmetic products, supplements, and seasoning, harvesting of these plants is increasing as rural communities rely on them as a major source of income, and these unique species are becoming threatened. To prevent exploitation of the land, collectors and cooperatives can be educated on sustainable harvesting practices, such as only taking the part of the plant they need and always leaving enough of the plant behind to promote reproduction. These practices can also improve the quality of the forage, in turn increasing potential profit. Many rural communities are not knowledgeable concerning business practices; as a result, collectors are exploited by wholesalers and earn a fraction of the money they should from their
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