Within their range, ramps are among the most popular wild foods that people forage. This makes perfect sense: they're yummy, they're fairly easy to identify (their smell differentiates them from poisonous look alikes), and they seem pretty damn abundant in so many places.

But what kind of wild harvest is truly sustainable?

If you're in online foraging groups, you've probably already seen the tedious arguing. People in favor of sustainability argue to not, or to only in very limited situations, gather the bulbs, while people who think that because they see so many freakin' ramps this is a non-issue, and they don't need to concern themselves with it (and, dammit, they'll gather what they want!). People often back up their opinions with their experience, which is fine... but probably not entirely fine all by itself.

First of all, abundance ≠ sustainability. Like, remember the mind blowing abundance of the passenger pigeon? Yeah, those are all gone now.

Also, impacts on harvesting may not be clearly visible for a decade or more. The impact you see in a few years may not be the population trend over a longer time period.

While many people think that following "sustainable harvesting rules" ensures sustainability, its not that simple. I often see people state that 10% harvest is sustainable. But think about it: Let's say you have 100 plants and so you sustainably harvest 10. Then a couple days later someone sees 90 plants and sustainably harvests 9. Then someone comes by a little later and harvests 8 of the 81 plants left... just three people in we're approaching 30% harvest, and that 30% scales up even when you're considering thousands of plants. That's 3 times the perceived sustainable harvest with just three people, even though each was trying to harvest sustainably.

Finally, there is actual research on this, which does show impact even from small scale harvest:

Plugging the Leak on Wild Leeks: The Threat of Over-harvesting Wild Leek Populations in Northern New York (2012)
Barry Edgar, Hannah Brubaker, and Kelsey Tuminelli
"Taking only the leaves of a wild leek plant and leaving the root and bulb is a more responsible way to harvest, as this method leaves ramp clusters intact and does not kill the plant (Pickowicz 2011). Native American groups such as the Cherokee have utilized this method of harvesting for centuries (Davis-Hollander 2011). The method of only taking the leaves and the petiole of the plant is also used in Europe for harvesting of the ramson species, Allium ursinum, utilized for its culinary value (Davis-Hollander 2011). Perhaps if all harvesters only took the leaves and the petiole, and not the underground bulb, wild leek populations would not be threatened by over-harvesting. Educating the public and harvesters is key in implementing this sustainable harvesting technique."
` www.stlawu.edu/sites/default/files/resource/wild_leek_conservation.pdf

Population recovery following differential harvesting of Allium tricoccum Ait. in the southern Appalachians (2002)
Janet H. Rock (Great Smoky Mountains National Park), Brian Beckage & Louis J. Gross (University of Tennessee, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology)
"A sustainable harvest is one in which plant products can be harvested indefinitely from a limited area with little impact to the populations being harvested (Peters, 1996). We found that even a single 25% experimental harvest was detrimental to populations of A. tricoccum at its southern range limit as our plant populations did not recover from this level of harvesting in the 4 years of our study. A simple population model based on our data projected the mean recovery time from a 25% harvest to be approximately 22 years. Our results are consistent with Nault and Gagnon (1993) who predicted that a 10– 15% harvest was detrimental to northern populations of A. tricoccum. Together these studies clearly indicate that at the northern and southern range limits, harvesting is not sustainable except at very modest levels."
` www.uvm.edu/~bbeckage/Manuscripts/Rock.BiologicalConservation.2004.pdf

Ramet Demography of Allium Tricoccum, A Spring Ephemeral, Perennial Forest Herb (1993)
Andree Nault and Daniel Gagnon
"Simulated harvesting rates of only 5-15% were sufficient to bring the population growth rates below equilibrium value, predicting a population decline. Bulb harvest represents a threat for population maintenance of these largely clonal northern populations, in which recruitment of seed is unlikely."
` https://sci-hub.se/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2261228


So what to do?

It is essential that we think about sustainability proactively. It should be a forethought and not an afterthought. When we wait until the the impact on a species is glaring, our ability to help that species recover is undermined.

An easy practice is to gather leaves only, making sure there are still leaves left on each plant so they can continue to thrive. Does this mean no one can ever gather a ramp bulb again or they're evil? No, but the research does seem to indicate that ramp harvest is not nearly so sustainable as it appears, and especially when discussing harvesting practices in forums with new, inexperienced foragers, stressing sustainable ramp harvest makes ecological sense for all of us, and most importantly for ramps: the unique growing conditions around a given individual might not be the growing conditions around the people reading their opinion that sustainability is a non-issue, and this could result in ecological harm and threaten wild populations.

While I don't think that the information above gives us all the be all/end all answers to what every individual should do, I do think everyone should look at and consider the value of these efforts, which were undertaken by people who clearly care about the species (because sometimes I half expect someone in the "don't tell me how to pick my ramps" camp to suggest that these studies are shams all paid for by "Big Grocery").

I've wildcrafted most of the herbs I use for over 25 years. I get nuance, and I get valuing the experience that I've gained in doing so.  But I don't get the refusal by some to even consider research, and I absolutely don't get the hostility some people express at the mere thought of sustainability.

Some other articles to check out:

United Plant Savers: Ramps
` https://unitedplantsavers.org/ramps/

Conscientious Collection of Wild Leeks
Arthur Haines/Delta Institute
` https://tinyurl.com/hainesramps

Harvesting Ramps: Sustainable Techniques and Ethical Considerations
Erika Galentin
` https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTSKLpHcVig

The Ramp Post
Alexis Nikole Nelson @blackforager
` https://www.facebook.com/blackforager/posts/249494160176932
 
an additional note: if you're going to refute the literally decades worth of information presented here, but you haven't actually read and thought about the content in the resources linked to, your opinions are perhaps... not very well thought out. You should maybe work on being open and interested in new information, even information that conflicts with your beliefs.

Or: just take the time to read this, okay?