By Ann Armbrecht

I first met Steven Foster at a workshop he offered at a Green Nations Gathering in the early 2000s called Sustainable Herbalism. It was a small group. Sustainable Herbalism wasn’t and still isn’t a very sexy topic.

Steven brought an international perspective to the discussion and an understanding of the intricacies of the industry that I had not heard about before. He talked about the work of WHO, IUCN, and WWF around medicinal plant conservation, the genetic erosion of plants from habitat destruction and over-extraction, and about the importance of gathering scientific information on the biology of plants. This research must be done on a species by- species basis because there is such variation. What is the reproductive biology of each plant? Who are the pollinators? What are the genetic differences throughout the range of the plant?

This information mattered, he said, because it meant that claims about plants being threatened or endangered could then be based on specific information about what constitutes a sustainable yield for individual species.

Steven was the first herbalist I met speaking about the herbal industry at an herb conference. Herbalists then, and to some extent still today, looked down on the industry as having compromised their values and integrity. Those in the industry considered herbalists to be naïve, with little understanding of what it took to source and produce herbal products on the scale needed to reach a growing population. Steven did neither. He stood with the plants. He stayed connected to them and, through his photographs, talks, and writing connected to the herb community. And he worked with the American Botanical Council to hold the herb industry to its claims.

That workshop inspired my journey to follow herbs to their source. When I launched the Sustainable Herbs Project (SHP) Kickstarter, Steven reviewed what I wrote about the industry, making sure what I said was accurate. Once the Sustainable Herbs Project became a program at the American Botanical Council, I found myself working closely with Steven 18 years after that initial workshop.

Steven was an incredible ally and mentor. He provided big picture advice and editorial input. He shared his photos (and we had plans to share many more of those) and resources. We had plans to share profiles of plants in commerce, sharing the type of information he outlined in that Green Nations workshop. Those profiles got held up in large part because of the depth of Steven’s knowledge. He knew so much about any species and he had so many more articles and books on that species, that it was impossible to know where and how to begin. He was an active participant in the SHP Advisory Group, helped come up with speakers for the SHP webinar series, and several times a week he sent articles of interest or topics I should cover.

Steven would send me firm but kind messages when I was too impatient about missed deadlines. From the beginning, he said that the Sustainable Herbs Program was important for the way it touches on the heart of working with plants, on our connections with the plants, and through the plants, with each other. He reminded me to keep that at the center. And he reminded me when he sensed I needed the reminder that the work we are doing is making a difference.

Steven bridged worlds that too often stay separate. He dedicated his life to plants, and he followed his curiosity where it led him. And he dug deep, bringing a rigor that I relied on. He brought the same attention to the details of history or plant knowledge that he captured in his photographs. And that attention helped me see each more deeply.

At that Green Nations workshop, Steven said that he became interested in echinacea because it is an especially beautiful wildflower. When he shut his eyes at night, he saw echinacea. He took that as a sign, he said, to pay attention.

In closing, Steven talked about what we could do. Ask where herbs are from, he said. And make sure you get the answer. And be aware. “Awareness is the seed that germinates whatever action that we later will take.”

Ann Armbrecht, an anthropologist, is the director of the American Botanical Council’s Sustainable Herbs Program. She is the author of The Business of Botanicals: Exploring the Healing Promise of Plant Medicines in a Global Industry that documents her journey following herbs from seed to shelf. She is also the co-producer of the documentary Numen: The Nature of Plants and the author of the award-winning ethnographic memoir Thin Places: A Pilgrimage Home, based on her research in Nepal.