Foraging in Czechia: The nation’s precious hobby

Abstract

ABSTRACT The article fills the gap in the geographical literature on foraging in a Central and Eastern European context. Its goals are to investigate the extent and character of foraging practice and the population of foragers in Czechia, as well as to uncover what motivates the practice of foraging for non-timber forest products. A mixed methods approach was used in the reported study, which combined the triangulation of data from official statistics, three waves of a representative data survey, and a case study of mushroom pickers in Prague, the capital city of Czechia. The results show that foraging is a widespread practice in Czechia with stable but fluctuating harvest volumes. Czechs gather mainly mushrooms and edible berries. The results also show that foraging is a traditional practice of people with different demographic characteristics and from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, with a myriad of diverse motivations and connotations far from mere economic ones. Strolling outside in the fresh air and in forests is clearly a dominant motive. Thus, the author concludes that foraging in Czechia is far from being limited to livelihood strategies to tackle food insecurity.