California's white sage is under threat

Surrounded by desert brush and low shrubbery, Ron Goodman examined the spindly white sage plants, their stunted growth a tell-tale sign that poachers had visited the area. Trekking along a hiking path in the North Etiwanda Preserve, a habitat sanctuary in San Bernardino County, he described how he has been combating this poaching since he began working there in 2011.

"[Poachers] pretty much start in early spring and they'll run through late summer," Goodman said. "They're up here because of the spring bloom, and they'll poach it, and it's on a daily basis."

Goodman is the lead ranger at the preserve. The park's rangers are the sole protectors of the habitat's dwindling sage stands.

The act of white sage smudging, burning bundles of the dried herb, is an indigenous practice that has seen waves of popularity for decades. This practice has been the star of multiple spiritual how-tos on TikTok, YouTube and other platforms.

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Click image to enlarge - Audio and infographic by Alicia Alvarez

White sage is limited to Southern California and Northern Baja habitats and acts as a pillar in the environment, cultural traditions and economy of the area. Listen to this short audio-history for a deeper understanding of the importantance of plant conservation.

California white sage, or Salvia Apiana, is native exclusively to Southern California and northern Baja California. The poaching limits plants available for indigenous practices, damages the surrounding environment and carries legal repercussions.

Poachers and black market distributors have targeted Southern California's white sage for well over a decade, if not longer.

According to the California Native Plant Society, over 20,000 tons of white sage have been illegally taken from the preserve.

"I've had numerous occasions where I've stumbled upon the poachers. And it used to be when they were less sophisticated, when they first started out they were just using trash cans," Goodman said. "It was really blatantly obvious, where now, they'll get five-gallon containers. They'll cut [the white sage and] they'll stuff it in there. They put it in duffel sacks and they take it out."

Photos courtesy of Ron Goodman

He said most visitors are unaware of the fragility of the remaining sage on the preserve. Some see it as just another desert bush. This lack of education contributes to the issue but also acts as a potential protector of the plant.

"We've got to be careful how much information we give out because as the word gets out, the curiosity factor increases, and then rather than try to deter the problem, we've added to the problem," Goodman said "So we're oftentimes between a rock and a hard space as to how much we talk about the white sage."

The rangers fight to protect the sage stands on multiple fronts. Visitors bringing dogs and people straying from allotted paths contribute to the damage the park faces.

While removing white sage from the nature preserve is illegal, the plant itself is not protected.

This park is one of the last few remaining areas acting as a natural habitat for white sage. According to One Earth, about 90% of coastal terraces and foothills have been disrupted or lost to urbanization, which is one of the few areas the plant thrives in. Overall, it has lost about half of its total natural habitat to development and urbanization, according to the California Native Plant Society, including multiple bioregions.

Non-indigenous communities began to adapt white sage smudging into their spiritual practice during the 1960s hippie movement, according to the California Native Plant Society. TikTok how-two videos and YouTube spiritualists produced a new wave of popularity.

Hollywood depictions of witchcraft and the occult also feature the use of smudge sticks, especially in a paranormal context. These depictions lack the cultural and historical context for the practice, bastardizing it into a quick fix for a perceived haunting or "bad energy."

Dramatized depictions like these lack the cultural and historical context for the practice, bastardizing it into a quick fix for a perceived haunting or "bad energy." This portrayal of white sage has driven market demand, putting the few remaining white sage stands at risk.

Photos by Alicia Alvarez

New age spiritual shops in Southern California sell bundles of white sage. Their displays feature "how-to" instructions to cleanse negative energies or dispel bad spirits. Stores like Earth's Elements and Mystical Dragon offer dozens of different white sage smudge sticks available for purchase. Customers won't find any signs explaining the cultural significance of white sage in indigenous communities nor that its use is sometimes an appropriated practice.

"White sage is the plant that's the principal component of smudge sticks that you find on Etsy or out at New Age stores, or just on social media," said David Bryant, the National Tropical Botanical Garden's director of communications. "White sage is the principal component of that, and it is really threatened because of it. There's a whole black market around that."

"White sage is the plant that's the principal component of smudge sticks that you find on Etsy or out at New Age stores, or just on social media," said David Bryant, the National Tropical Botanical Garden's director of communications. "White sage is the principal component of that, and it is really threatened because of it. There's a whole black market around that."

These bundles are described similarly to how content creators market them, as energy cleansers for your person and home. A few stores specify that it is California white sage, but do not elaborate on where or how it was harvested.

Earth's Elements, a chain of metaphysical shops in San Diego County, has a variety of smudge sticks for sale. Just one bundle boasts dozens of dried sage leaves, possibly from poachers.

Photos by Alicia Alvarez

Earth's Elements is a chain of metaphysical new age shops in Northern San Diego County. These stores supply spiritual tools, including an abundance of white sage. Many of the smudge sticks sold in these stores are labeled as "white sage" or "California sage."

These products aren't exclusive to in-person shopping though.

Online retailers like Amazon and Etsy contribute to the commodification of white sage. With a few keystrokes and a credit card, a consumer could have a pack of 20 smudge sticks shipped to their doorstep.

Similar to the brick-and-mortar stores, many of the product descriptions of the online listings lack any cultural or historical context. Many also do not list where the white sage is sourced from, potentially being sourced illegally.

California has various legal protections for threatened and endangered plants both on a state and federal level. Plants like the Santa Barbara Island dudleya, a succulent species on both California and the federal government's list of protected species, has legal protections that prohibit any killing or harvesting of the plant in the wild.

White sage has no such protections.

"It used to be that we would catch [the poachers], the sheriff's department would come take them into custody. They can be cited on Penal Code 384, which is taking habitat," Goodman said. "We have it posted here that because we are a threatened and endangered habitat species location, that's why [sage] is protected here. It is not protected under California law whatsoever."

Duffle bags like these are used to smuggle sage off of the preserve, contributing to the estimated 20,000 pounds of poached sage.

Photo courtesy of Ron Goodman

The poaching of white sage from the park is a punishable offense because the land itself is a protected habitat. This protection extends to any plant on the preserve and is not exclusive to sage.

Rose Ramirez, an educator and Chumash native, said that poachers themselves are not the ones who are behind the exploitation.

"The people that are actually making money, we don't know who they are. They're invisible to us, but they are the ones selling it to distributors or they are the distributors," she said.

The limited legal protection is not the only hurdle that the preserve's rangers face.

"With the terrain, it is so difficult to try to be able to get law enforcement up here. It's just too large an area, and you'd have to devote too many resources to it," Goodman said.

Goodman said that after the COVID-19 pandemic, law enforcement resources became limited and pursuing poaching charges isn't at the forefront of concern of the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department.

"Penalties vary depending on the price of sage," Tom Stanek, North Etiwanda Preserve's ranger and park scientist, said. "The price of white sage may determine whether this is a felony charge worth pursuing or whether it's just a misdemeanor."

When resources were more available, Goodman caught alleged poachers with sage quantities that could lead to felony charges.

"When we used to make busts, we would scale it out for the Sheriff's Department, because that would dictate whether it was a misdemeanor or a felony," Goodman said. "Now, if you take a duffel sack that's got 100 pounds of it and say that the wholesale price was $30 you far exceeded the $900 threshold."

State Assemblymember James Ramos (D-Highland) proposed a bill to remedy this legal loophole in 2023 by extending protections to white sage.

This bill failed.

Goodman said that the current policy when catching alleged poachers is to ticket them and then release them from custody.

The lack of legal repercussions are not the only concern that the popularity of white sage presents.

With dry dirt and rocks crunching underfoot and armed with a trash bag, Stanek collected litter left among white sage bushes on the preserve.

Stanek spends much of his time cleaning up the habitat. He said he suspects that much of the trash left behind among the white sage stands are from poachers.

Broken beer bottles, food wrappers, sunbleached duffle bags and even a knife have all crossed Stanek's path while trying to return the park to a more pristine state.

Photo by Alicia Alvarez

Tom Stanek (left) examines a white sage patch for trash while Ron Goodman (right) looks on.

"There were people literally repelling down cliffs," Ramirez said. "They found that some people were driving up the coast, poaching a whole bunch of plants, putting them in a box and going to the next post office, shiping it and [continuing] poaching."

Tim Becker, the director of horticulture at the Theodore Payne Foundation, a nonprofit organization that focuses on educating and preserving native plants, said that poaching harms more than just an individual species.

"All native plants contribute to healthy ecosystems. They're creating the building blocks of ecology and the food chain and supporting the wildlife that reside in those areas," he said.

When one plant is damaged or begins to disappear, resources of the surrounding microenvironment are disrupted. This issue is aggravated by the lack of public knowledge about the plant.

Video by Alicia Alvarez

The Etiwanda Nature Preserve's rangers battle many issues that poachers create. Watch this video to hear their perspectives, concerns, and comments on the current state of the park's sage stands.

"I don't think the public knows that most of that sage comes from these endangered areas, whereas the state of California does not see the species of white sage as a plant of concern," Stanek said.

The dwindling habitat, while not the result of poaching, contributes to the damage of the Southern California ecosystem.

"The poaching creates a weaker plant, because so much energy is invested into top growth of leaves and everything else, just to survive, as opposed to the solid root system," Stanek said.

While maintaining and pruning some plants can contribute to the growth and health of the plant, wild white sage is best when left alone.

"Even from a garden maintenance perspective, if you want habitat in your home garden, the less pruning, the better," Becker said. "The accumulation of biomass and letting things kind of live out the entirety of their yearly life cycle is really important."

Beyond the pollinators and other plants that rely on white sage, there is a large community of indigenous cultures that is watching a vital resource slowly disappear.

Photos by Alicia Alvarez

San Bernardino County's North Etiwanda Preserve boasts one of the few remaining white sage stands in Southern California. Park rangers Ron Goodman and Tom Stanek help protect these plants but poachers still prey on the white sage leaves and sell them to black market distributors.

David Bryant, the director of communications at the National Tropical Botanical Garden, co-directed a film centering indigenous voices on this issue. He said that white sage is presented as a product anyone can access and reap its spiritual benefits by burning it without indigenous connections. "It makes people feel like they can quickly be a part of that, that they can buy into it," he said.

With the mass recreation of this practice, much of the tradition and spiritual intention is lost and it becomes performative. The criminalization of indigenous practices until the passage of the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act is largely ignored in media portrayals and contributes to this issue.

"What they are doing is they are picking and choosing what parts they like and disregard anything they don't like," Ramirez said. "That's just not right. It's racist and some people consider it genocidal."

Along with the appropriation of smudging, consumers overlook the relationship between the land, plants and the individual that is central in this practice. Sage is gathered from plants that indigenous people tend to for generations, taking as minimal resources as possible and leaving offerings in return.

Intentions of harvesters are believed to play heavily into the energy and benefits of burning the sage.

"Probably more than 95% of the white sage that is on the market and that people burn in their apartments, it's being just ripped out of the landscape," Bryant said. "I've heard a lot of indigenous leaders say, 'What medicine do you think you're getting by using sage that has been desecrated like that, that's been ripped out like that, that's been shoved in garbage bags, that's been sold on the black market.'"

The commodification of this practice not only has limited a resource, but it has made a caricature out of a spiritual ritual and medicine.

Bryant co-directed a film with Ramirez and Deborah Small, a professor focused on native plant conservation at the University of California, San Marcos, titled "Saging the World." The film was released in 2022 and sparked various conversations both in and outside of mainstream media. Bryant said that even with the release of the film, the commodification of white sage remains.

"We saw it on the film poster for Disney's Haunted Mansion and to see it in such a mainstream way, it's so troubling to me," he said.

Platforms like TikTok have pivoted to educating the public on why the practice should be exclusive to indigenous communities.

One video posted on TikTok in March 2023 amassed over 72,000 likes and explains why sage is a closed practice.

This education extends past online influencers.

Zandra Wagoner, the interfaith chaplain and assistant professor at the University of LaVerne, helps facilitate conversations about white sage on her campus. She began working with indigenous leaders local to the university in 2012 after being approached about the sacred sage in a campus garden.

"We didn't know what it was... but as soon as we learned about it, we talked with our facilities management to say we need these plants to no longer be maintained by facilities," Wagoner said. "These are plants that need to be cared for by our indigenous community."

This began a working relationship between the university and the community to nurture the sage and educated students interested in it. Sage gatherings and blessings are held on campus, facilitated by indigenous leaders.

"It always opens with a ceremony and students are taught how to interact with the plants, how to do it in a sacred way," Wagoner said. "Students are taught how to bundle the white sage and how to dry it. Typically students are given the opportunity for their own cleansing with the sage."

Educational experiences such as this combat the misuse of white sage. Students are able to share their experience with peers, family members and friends, slowly educating the masses.

It also connects individuals back to roots they didn't realize they had. The University of Laverne is primarily attended by a large hispanic population with ties to indigenous cultures.

"It's been incredible," Wagoner said. "Watching and witnessing students who have somewhere in the back recesses of their history and maybe hardly even in their knowledge base that they too are connected to indigenous communities, and somehow, through this experience, feeling a sense of beauty in their culture, a sense of connection to a long history."

This effort to respect the plant doesn't stop with students.

"Our work going forward is continuing to work with land managers and land owners and indigenous communities or government agencies to continue to work to both protect and conserve this plant," Becker said.

Landscaping, such as native plant yards and gardens, can help repopulate white sage stands in Southern California.

Ellen Woodward-Taylor is taking a different approach to combating white sage poaching. Woodward-Taylor is co-owner of SageWinds Farm, a 40-acre farm focused on growing white sage and selling its products.

Woodward-Taylor operates a certified organic white sage farm, located in the high desert of Southern California. She began this venture in 2006 and now sells her sage to local indigenous groups, retailers and to anyone who visits her farm.

Photos by Alicia Alvarez

She even ships overseas. Woodward-Taylor said that retailers in Japan began purchasing loose-leaf sage in bulk to cleanse the spiritual energy of an area after a natural disaster occurs.

While Woodward-Taylor's two fields of white sage offer a limited supply, it creates a new pocket in the market. Sustainably harvested sage can offset the demand.

"You have to buy it from a sustainable source and by going to somebody like SageWinds Farm, you are protecting our native stands that need to be there for the environment and naive use," Ramirez said.

These combined efforts from the general public can help diminish the demand for white sage and make poaching far less lucrative, but the legal protection and enforcement are still lacking.

"We have a great understanding here within the park. We know what we're losing, we know what we're controlling and we know what we're preserving," Stanek said. "But a greater community, including state, maybe perhaps even law enforcement puts it on a back burner of insignificance."

Without resources and legislation, white sage is vulnerable to the next wave of popularity and demand.

"We have forgotten that we're dependent on nature. We are dependent on every living thing out there," Ramirez said. "And our plant is beautiful. It's the most amazing thing, and yet here we are."