Looters strip Greek mountains of wild tea, rare plants

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — In the rugged, herb-scented mountains of northwestern Greece, where the border with Albania is a snaking invisible line, trouble is brewing over tea — the wild herbal variety.

Greek authorities and conservationists say bands of impoverished Albanians are making regular cross-border forays, illegally harvesting donkey-loads of herbs and medicinal plants.

The looters then sell the herbs for export to pharmaceutical or cosmetics companies, a business that nets Albanian wholesalers tens of millions annually.

In targeted operations over the last few months, Greek police have arrested at least ten Albanians and seized dozens of kilograms of herbs.

Many poor Albanians are crossing the mountains into Greece this year because of an herb shortage in Albania due to freezing temperatures last winter, said Filip Gjoka, president of Albania's Association of Medicinal & Aromatic Plants and owner of an herb and spice trading company.

Gjoka said the Albanian companies employ 10,000 workers and another 80,000 people as independent contractors for whom seasonal herb picking is their only source of income.

Eleni Maloupa, director of Greece's Institute of Breeding and Plant Genetic Resources in Thessaloniki, says some of the 14 kinds of ironwort that grow in Greece are threatened with extinction and there is a blanket ban on their collection, even in small quantities.