Fungal Jungle

Fungi are an important component of forest ecosystems and many people enjoy foraging for edible species in their local woodlands. One is not supposed, however, to remove any of these organisms from protected locations. In spite of this, the financial rewards (you can get big money from some restaurants) have led groups of illegal pickers to denude some locations, threatening the local ecology (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/23/if-you-go-down-to-the-woods-today-dont-come-back-with-mushrooms-aoe). For example, a group detected in Epping forest were found to have gathered almost 50kg of fungi.