Permit for Collecting

rzeles

I am interested in doing some collecting of some Scrub Pines (which I think they also call Jersey Pine or Pinus Virginiana) in some local woods in New Jersey. I believe the property is actually owned by the township and was wondering if anyone has ever approached the local government to secure some type of permit to dig on township land. Is this common? How about state owned land. Any permits available to do this?

Thanks.
Ron

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rockm

Depends greatly on the locality and who owns the land. It is extremely difficult to get permission to collect in Eastern U.S. National forests and even more difficult, or impossible, to get permits for National Parks. State Parks are controlled by the, well, state. The bigger the beauracracy, the less likely you are to get a permit...

Municipal land is a different story--it depends on who you're talking to (and possibly who you know inthe town government) and the land itself. While some towns have no problem with letting you dig an old busted up landscape juniper out of a DMV parking lot, they might have a problem with you digging an old pine out of a wetland--which might be protected under ferderal law. I would call the township's parks official and start there--see if the land you're interested in collecting on is actually owned by the town. Could be leased, or under some other restrictions...

rzeles

Thank you sir. Extremely helpful. I am in a very small town and friendly with the Mayor, Chief of Police, and Business Administrator, thus, will reach out to them. I am sure I will get the blank stare, however, as long as the cops don't lock me up for it, I am good to go.

rockm

"I am in a very small town and friendly with the Mayor, Chief of Police, and Business Administrator, thus, will reach out to them. "

Excellent places to start. Might help to show them one of your existing bonsai and explain the process of converting a wild tree into bonsai, as they will probably not understand that Banzai aren't cute widdle dwarf trees from Japan that are tended from seed by Pat Morita .

Alasdair

I am going to send some letters to local land owners asking for permission to collect on their land. In order to make it look like i'm not a crazy bloke with a spade i am going to point out that i will not be collecting any plant contained in schedule 8 of the wildlife & countryside act and propose a sensible quota of no more than 5 trees per quarter. They're only going to buldose the lot and build houses on it so it should be fine.

Do your research first and find out what is on the protected species list in your area, 'protected under federal law' as rockm mentioned.

Al

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Bonsai Barry

I've had a lot of frustration in asking for permits from the National Forest Service in CA. They don't seem to know what the requirements are, and arbitrarily say no. I've asked -politely- to see the regulations and have never had any success in obtaining them.

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Bonsai Barry

"Our talent lies in our choices."

onlyrey

I am researching into this as well for Florida. There is a State park nearby that has awesome material that could become excellent bonsai some day, but haven't figured out if they even allow collecting at all.

The little hope I have comes from people getting permission to hunt animals. If they give permission to hunt animals there should be some way of getting permission to collect trees. From my point of view, the collected trees have a better chance of surviving than any hunted animals, even if it is in my hands

2AcreWood

The information on permits is available from the USDA Forest Service website. http://www.fs.fed.us/passespermits/ Check under Special at the bottom. They may give you the runaround at that point, but at least you are not stuck with no information.

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