Poachers show no respect

In a dimly lit backroom of a metaphysical shop filled with the scent of burning sage, Breann Robinson spoke about the cultural exploitation common in New Age spiritualism.

Robinson blames “WitchTok,” which gained popularity in 2022, creating a spiritual subculture on TikTok with how-to videos for creating spells, using Tarot cards and burning white sage bundles as smudge sticks. This genre of social media content centers around spiritual movements and practices, often appropriating rituals from indigenous cultures.

“Hoodoo has gotten very popular on ‘WitchTok’... but hoodoo is a closed practice for those who are descendants of African American slaves. End of discussion,” Robinson said. “They’ve forgotten the soul [of the practice]. The same goes for white sage.”

The store manager for The Elemental Shop, a New Age spiritual store in Long Beach, said that white sage is a common product people shop for, following a seasonal trend.

“We’re in the winter season so people are in their house more. People are not really able to distract themselves as much so this is a heightened time for new novice in the spiritual community. This is really when we see the influx of white sage." Robinson said.

White sage, or Salvia Apiana, is a plant with spiritual and medicinal significance to Indigenous cultures in Southern California and northern Baja California, Mexico. This native plant, known as Californian white sage, does not grow naturally anywhere else in the world. It has attracted global interest through the influential reach of social media.

“How-to” videos explaining uses and spiritual benefits of white sage smudging are common on social media, with one TikTok in April 2022 receiving over 25,000 likes.

White sage is quickly disappearing. The global demand for smudge sticks created problems for the communities that rely on it and the ecosystem surrounding it.

“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 communication. “White sage is the principal component of that, and it is really threatened because of it. There's a whole black market around that.”

While this publicity may appear harmless, they fuel the black market of poached sage and cause concern for communities that care for the plant.

Rose Ramirez, an educator and Chumash native, said that this attention leads to the destruction and commodification of native lands and plants.

The videos, when posted to social media, can influence individuals to use white sage when experiencing negative life events. Various creators explain the spiritual cleansing white sage is believed to hold, marketing it to their audience as a solution for “bad energy.” When shared, reposted and interacted with, these videos can reach millions of accounts and potential buyers.

The videos, when posted to social media, can influence individuals to use white sage when experiencing negative life events. Various creators explain the spiritual cleansing white sage is believed to hold, marketing it to their audience as a solution for “bad energy.” When shared, reposted and interacted with, these videos can reach millions of accounts and potential buyers.

This publicity has the potential to reach millions of viewers.

“There’s 24 million people in the LA basin, if they go out and start getting these plants, they’re no longer just foragers,” Ramirez said. It has become poaching.”

According to the California Native Plant Society, an organization focused on plant conservation, over 20,000 tons of white sage have been illegally taken from the preserve. The organization said poachers are often undocumented immigrants.

Ramirez said that poachers themselves are not the ones who are behind the exploitation of the land and culture. The distributors of the poached plants and the ones paying for the duffle bags of sage are the primary perpetrators.

“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. “We don’t know.”

A Los Angeles Times 2020 article documented the damage of poachers damage of poachers on Southern California’s white sage stands. This poaching began in 2014 and became more aggressive in 2020.

“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.”

Park rangers have caught alleged poachers with up to 1,000 pounds in one instance, but the arrests have dwindled in recent years.

Most coverage of the issue was published between 2020 and 2022 by organizations like Vice, The Los Angeles Times, ABC 7 Los Angeles and The Arizona Republic.

Bryant said some of the media coverage in 2022 was driven by the release of the film “Saging The World.” Bryant co-directed the film with Ramirez and Deborah Small, a professor at the University of California, San Marcos, that focuses on the conversation of native plants.

While the film sparked the conversation of protecting the plant, Bryant said the media still portrays it as a commodity.

“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.

The limited availability of this plant and the slow production of legally sourced smudge sticks contradicts with the assumption that white sage is accessible for a wide audience. Viewing this resource as a household item, like rosemary or thyme, ignores the spiritual significance of the plant and drives consumer demand.

The global demand for white sage is not a sustainable volume for the native plants to produce in a healthy and protected manner. The plant’s environment is already limited by development.

“It only comes from this very small area in our country and it’s already a place that has lost 70% of its sage scrub habitat just to development,” Ramirez said. “The rest of it is going to be lost to poaching and climate change.”

Climate change threatens all biodiversity with disrupted and altered ecosystems, but Ramirez believes that it won’t be the reason white sage disappears.

“The plants can adapt to climate change if they were left alone, but it’s the poaching that is going to take the rest of it,” she said.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the plant acts as a food source for deer, elk, rabbits and more. The plant also attracts pollinators while flowering and acts as a pivotal part of the native environment.

California habitats are not the only areas suffering from over harvesting.

“We've heard in Mexico that it's even worse,” Bryant said. “There's just so much dredging of the hillsides of white sage and poachers go deep into the land and gather mass quantities. There's just not as much enforcement.”

Bryant said that the protection of native plants and lands are not as enforceable in Baja compared to Southern California, allowing poachers to decimate the ecosystem there.

The portrayal of white sage on social media does not always educate consumers on these issues.

“Seeing what's happened with white sage, where it's being put in this light as something that anyone can have, that it's going to bring these spiritual benefits, it's as simple as burning it in your apartment, it's really dangerous,” Bryant said. “It makes people feel like they can quickly be a part of that, that they can buy into it.”

New Age spiritual shops and online storefronts like Etsy and Amazon offer thousands of smudge sticks, most of which include white sage.

While stores, like The Elemental Shop, sometimes sell alternative smudging bundles that do not include white sage, many consumers are drawn to it and further perpetuate the black market cycle.

Robinson said that she tries to steer some patrons away from white sage despite it being sold in the store.

“I think a great shop would have an abundance of everything outside of sage. That’s how you can tell this store is actually working with plant spirits instead of hopping on a bandwagon of a trend,” she said.

The Elemental Shop only stocks one type of white sage bundle, filling the shelves with rosemary and mugwort instead. Other small businesses and major chains sell multiple.

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White sage sold at The Elemental Shop in Long Beach, California

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White sage sold at Earth Elements in Oceanside, California

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White sage sold at Earth Elements in Encinitas, California

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White sage sold at Mystic Dragon in Carlsbad, California

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White sage sold at World Market in Oceanside, California

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Photos by Alicia Alvarez

New age spiritual shops contribute to the commercialization of white sage. Locally owned businesses such as Moonlight Sage and Mystic Dragon compete with larger chains including Earth Elements and World Market in Southern California to sell this plant in what is commonly called smudging bundles.

Corporations like Walmart and World Market sell smudge sticks both online and in stores.

Many of these bundles do not state where or how they were harvested and processed, which Ramirez says indicated that they were made from poached plants.

“If somebody is going through all the trouble of making sure it’s sustainably grown, they are going to tell you because it’s a lot of work,” Ramirez said.

Many of these bundles are marketed as wild, suggesting that the materials were poached.

“What they really mean is that they're going out into the land and taking from plants in places that they have no relationship with and extracting those for profit,” Bryant said.

Another problematic aspect of the plant’s popularity is the appropriation of native spiritual practices.

“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.”

The issue of appropriation is not new to native cultures. Ramirez said that non-native people have been wanting to wear regalia and participate in powwows for decades. She said the interest in white sage stems from this and has created a stereotype.

The mass-media portrayal of spiritual benefits of the plant is misleading. Robinson said that individuals need to have a relationship with medicinal and spiritual plants to see any metaphysical benefits.

The viral use of white sage to “smudge” a room consists of burning the bundle in a space to “cleanse” the area of negative energy. This practice is often shown on social media sites, ghost hunting shows and movies portraying paranormal occurrences. According to Robinson, this is the common use for sage that individuals outside of the indigenous community purchase it for.

Some individuals believe that the purchase of white sage from non-native storefronts does not offer the spiritual properties that it is marketed to have,

“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.’”

According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the state is home to 6,500 varieties of native plants. Legislation, like the Native Plant Protection Act of 1977, ensures the conservation of endangered plants, but does not specifically protect white sage from commodification.

State Assemblymember James Ramos (D-Highland) proposed a bill on 2023 to extend protections and further solidify illegally gathering white sage as a criminal offense. While the bill did not pass the first committee review, other measures have followed.

Ramirez said that United Plant Savers are attempting to put white sage on a controlled import and export list to reduce poaching. The white sage would need to be certified as sustainably produced to be legally exported.

Beyond legislation, sustainability is another focus of individuals that sell white sage.

The Elemental Shop only carries one bundle that includes white sage and Robinson said that they buy this plant from reliable sources.

“Our vendors are small family businesses who are also medicine people,” she said. “It’s really focused on ethically sourcing and making sure that the community is the one benefiting.”

While not all vendors are transparent about the sustainability of their products, Ramirez said that white sage farms might be the solution to the issue of poaching.

SageWinds Farm co-owner Ellen Woodward-Taylor, a white sage cultivator in Southern California, sells bundles and loose leaves grown on their 40-acre farm. Ramirez said such vendors are reliable sources to purchase from without harming Indigenous individuals and plants.

Photos by Alicia Alvarez

SageWinds Farm offers an alternative source of white sage for consumers. This cultivated sage helps protect native plant stands from poachers by bringing sustainable products to the market. The farm has been featured in works by the California Native Plant Society and has frequent visitors looking to learn more about white sage.

Woodward-Taylor operates the world’s first certified organic white sage farm, located in the high desert of Southern California. She sells white sage bundles, oil extracts and loose-leaf white sage all produced and distilled on her land.

Woodward-Taylor said she began selling white sage products in 2006. She now sells sage to local indigenous groups, local businesses and major retailers. Woodward-Taylor said that retailers in Japan recently began purchasing loose-leaf sage in bulk to cleanse the spiritual energy of an area after a natural disaster occurs.

Her two fields of sage attract many visitors, from pollinators to individuals interested in purchasing plants. Woodward-Taylor and her husband Ken Taylor run the farm themselves, ensuring that the plants and products are cared for and produced in a sustainable manner.

“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.

Reflecting on the personal and spiritual relationship with sage is also an important aspect of its sustainable usage.

“Burning it every day, finding it out in nature, making a tea with it, seeing it in its full bloom as a flower or nurturing a plant and communicating with it,” Robinson said. “Are we just burning it for the purpose of burning it or are we actually communicating?”

The social media marketing of white sage has also shifted. Some creators are now educating the audience on the importance of white sage to Indigenous cultures and suggesting alternatives for consumers.

While people advocate for respect for this Indigenous plant and spiritual practices, ecological damage and cultural exploitation persists as the demand for white sage remains.

“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.”