I do believe you are overreacting and you should try thinking within the limits of the game instead of trying to make up new laws and game mechanics.

Just think, Oregon and the Lumber companies.

Or , Brazil and the rainforest.

We've tried to keep it within the current limits. The governments wont step in, nor will the people change what they are doing. It needs a change in mechanics to fix it.

Most herbs with a little work are not a problem at all. Horehound has alwys been a problem. Galingale still does okay (planted rooms) but yes the demand is outstripping the growth. Yarrow to me has periods of good and bad but still seems okay to me. Reishi is another with periods of excellent and bad. Flax seems to be hit hard but i no longer harvest it so im not sure how things are at the moment.
The rest seem fine to me.

I must say people who guard entire sections annoy me the most. If your goal is to protect the future of that plant there is no need to do that. Half a dozen rooms protected will do that. Over five months when i was trying to harvest calamus, all i could harvest was 4 rooms.

Another thing is when people guard rooms after hibernation. How are people suppose to replant if you do this?.

Stripping bare as a war tactic is interesting, dont have a prob with that one.

If its not working its because a need is not recognized, which probably means a need does not exist.

Try to get an alchemist with the herbs needed to refill. Its quite the hunt. If there isnt a need, then this weed Im tokin musta been more powerful than I thought.

It would be nice if you would be able to send a message to all herbalists when you are a herbalist. That way you could explain even to those who seem to think that herbs just grow by themselves how herb growth is working.

Didn't you guys make a clan for that purpose?

I get frustrated with the herbs' shortages, but I try to adapt instead of giving up. I raise my prices a little to slow down some of the demand. I replant where I can. I've tried to convince the Hartstone and Moondancer herbalists not to guard every single room in an entire region, though my pleas typically fall on deaf ears. I just have to show up at the right time when the guarding falls and there's no one renewing it right away.

What we need is the Michael Moore of Lusternia! I vote... (Well, I would say Shiro, due to the relative amounts of annoying... But I love the big M & M too much, soooo...) Shiri!

:/ Who's Michael Moore, and why am I being compared to him?

Michael Moore was the director of the movie Fahrenheit 9/11.

Oh. Is it good that I'm being compared to him then? *squint*

Since I don't think Farehiet 9/11 has much to do about herbs...

Michael Moore made quite a few documentaries, his first one being Roger and Me, which was about coperations and thier affects on small towns.
And other political activist documentaries that try to "bring down the man".

I'm still lost, but, er, okay. :/

google is your friend. Don't be lost.

Step 1, take novices' tradeskills away, they don't need them anyway. Plus it'd help limit the ridiculous amount of alts whose sole purpose is to support a main character with free resources. It sucks, violates the policy big time and will get you flogged and banned if you're caught. (speaking of that, how about making novice teaching and supervision easier by giving secretaries access to GUILD SKILLS? *flutter* pretty please.)

Step 2, guilds need to force people to learn trades from other people rather than mob tutors, and the teachers need to make sure whoever begins with a tradeskill learns how to do it properly. There's no game mechanic that prevents serenwilde novices from playing around with the cute "caw" emote, it's the responsibility of the guild teachers to tell them that this is an attack and will get them spanked. Similar for proper harvesting.

People don't get banned for it. They get shrubbed now and then, but when they are unshrubbed they are right back to doing the same old thing, the same old way. It is happening all over again right now in fact. Only difference is; they no longer are the Serenwilde's problem.

Another way could be that once you choose your tradeskill that you get automatically a message explaining its general use together with some hints like for example that herbs don't grow on their own, that harvesting to zero is a bad idea, etc.

I can see it now:

PUBLIC NEWS #317
Date: 2/18/2005 at 4:49
From: Auseklis, the First Wanderer
To : Everyone
Subj: Mother Nature and Harvesting

Greetings Lusternians,

Earlier this month, Mother Nature decided to rebel my hand from harvesting her soil too frequently. As a result, I have slain her. Continue to over harvest and do so with the blessing of the Wanderer. That is all.

Somewhat connected comment: Perhaps the one thing that made me stop playing my Serenwilde charecter was the herb shortages. You can only replant so much, then it gets ridiculous.