Why is hair weed (Nostoc flagelliforme) banned from sale? The reasons explained in one article
Hair weed, also known as dimao, zhanmaocai, dimaocai and so on, is a type of algae in the order Nostocales, phylum Cyanobacteria. It gets its name because it is black and slender like human hair. Since the Han Dynasty, the powerful and wealthy often offered hair weed as tribute for the emperor to eat. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, regulating the lungs and resolving phlegm, and regulating the stomach and intestines, and it especially has the unique effect of lowering blood pressure. Now let us take a look at why hair weed is banned from sale!
Why is hair weed banned from sale?
The production areas of hair weed are usually quite poor, and some farmers make a living by digging up and selling hair weed. However, due to excessive harvesting of hair weed over many years, its wild resources have been severely damaged, and this has led to the degradation of large areas of grassland and desertification of land. In 2000, the State Council of the People's Republic of China issued the "Notice of the State Council on the Prohibition of Collecting and Selling Hair Weed and Curbing the Excessive Digging of Licorice and Ephedra", adjusting the protection level of hair weed in the "List of National Key Protected Wild Plants of China" from second class to first class, and requiring that the collection, purchase, processing, sale and export of hair weed be strictly prohibited.
What are the impacts of collecting hair weed?
The damage caused by raking hair weed is enormous. According to investigation and calculation, producing 1.5 to 2.5 liang of hair weed requires raking 10 mu of grassland. The income from 1.5 to 2.5 liang of hair weed is 40 to 50 yuan, that is, "40 to 50 yuan of income from hair weed destroys 10 mu of grassland, causing the grassland to yield no benefit for 10 years." In addition, after crowds pour into the grasslands, the economic losses caused by food, lodging, fuel and land occupation mean that the environmental and economic losses caused by raking hair weed each year amount to nearly 10 billion yuan, while the income from hair weed is only a few tens of millions of yuan. The cost is too high and the loss outweighs the gain. Moreover, because hair weed is mainly distributed in the grassland areas of northern China, collecting hair weed has also become one of the main causes of sandstorms in China.
Where are the production areas of hair weed?
Hair weed is a wild terrestrial algae unique to the plateau, widely distributed in deserts and poor soils around the world. It is produced in large quantities in the arid and semi-arid regions of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi and other provinces. It grows more abundantly in areas with annual rainfall between 80 and 250 mm and parent material of Tertiary red soil. In addition, it is also found in Russia, the Mongolian People's Republic, Czechoslovakia, France, the United States, Mexico, Morocco, Somalia and Algeria.