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Within my search for plant material to collect and make handmade paper from, I stumbled across many barriers. In Minnesota it is illegal to forage almost any plant to make paper. Why is foraging illegal? I understand the responsibility of foragers to not overuse local resources for exploitation... but for the local papermaker or other persons interested in the preservation of species and biodiversity, how could we help learn and teach about the land if we couldn't work with it? Although there are many ways this is already being done, I wanted to find my own way to bend the rules. Through researching the Minneapolis Parks and Board Rec website I found that the maintenance crew was allowed to mow and make decisions about plant species and areas to be maintained. This was my loophole. I could make paper from invasive and native species by being the collector of mowed plants. My particular interest was Cattails. When I began researching local materials I could process into paper, I found that cattails were abundant and a popular material. I waited until the Parks and Board Rec would cut the cattails and then take the leftover material to process into paper.  Comments are closed.
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