Were they to revisit the route of their journey now, chances are they would be concerned about the losses to the plant and animal kingdoms since their time. And were they to return as present-day Montana legislators, most likely they would join in the recent effort to reverse some of those losses.

Take, for example, echinacea angustifolia — or purple cone flower — which the explorers collected specimens of at the Mandan villages and sent back to President Thomas Jefferson. Little could they imagine that a plant the Mandans used to treat rattlesnake bite would in 200 years soar in popularity as a cold preventive and immune-system tonic and that with its popularity would come an alarming decline in a medicinal plant once abundant in eastern Montana. Yet the unimaginable has come to pass.

“People living there have harvested it to a point where it may become extinct because harvesting the root can bring in a good day’s wage,” says UM pharmaceutical sciences Professor Rustem Medora. Although Medora says the upper part of the plant can be as effective as the root for medicinal purposes, those who harvest the plant take it root and all, forcing it to the brink extinction.

As a result, the Montana Legislature in 1999 passed Senate Bill 178 to establish the Wild Medicinal Plants Task Force. Medora serves on the eight-member committee with other plant experts and tribal and state governmental representatives. Their tasks are to determine sustainable methods of collecting wild medicinal plants on state lands and recommend legislation if appropriate.

Besides echinacea angustifolia, the legislation lists bitterroot, lady’s slipper, lomatium, osha, sundew and trillium as endangered plants for the task force to look into and report on. Lewis and Clark found them all except osha, mentioned them in their journals and sent specimens to Jefferson. None of these plants has any modern use, Medora said. They are on the list because they are about to become extinct and must be protected.

As a holding action until the task force completes its work in 2002, the Legislature established a three-year moratorium on harvesting wild medicinal plants from state lands except for scientific study by an accredited representative of an accredited institute of higher education. Echinacea roots will not be for sale. Lewis and Clark would probably approve.

— by Terry Brenner

Roadway Economics
David Jackson, a UM forestry professor, has been appointed by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to serve on a Going-to-the-Sun Road Advisory Committee for Glacier National Park. This 17-member committee will advise and make recommendations to Babbitt and the National Park Service about alternatives for reconstruction of the aging Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Jackson, an economist, has worked at UM 24 years. His role on the committee is as an economist who represents the public interest.

“We will look at and identify a lot of alternatives for construction,” Jackson says. There’s no way it’s going to be easy on the businesses up there.”

Going-to-the-Sun Road is the only through road across Glacier National Park. It crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass and is one of the most visited features in the park. Each year nearly 2 million visitors travel the 52-mile roadway, which is the only access to many of the park’s spectacular attractions.

The road is a National Historic Landmark and a National Civil Engineering Landmark and is listed on the Register of Historical Places in recognition of its significance as both a historical and cultural resource.

— by Cary Shimek