Table 5 Categories of motivations established based on interviews with their correspondence to dimensions of well-being

Nutrition/income

Material welfare (basic physiological needs + financial situation

Answers mentioning the importance of wild plants for making a living, simple mentionings of just “food”, “you don’t have to pay for it/get it from the shop” or “helps people to survive”

9

8

17

Healthy

Physical health

Answers mentioning physical well-being, wild plants being pesticide-free, "in nature there is medicine" (in general terms, not directly as medicinal use); often in combination with curing, or specifically relating to medicinal herbs

22

38

59

Pleasure/emotional

Mental health

Mentioning direct pleasure or any other kind of emotional bond, or giving subjective reason with “because I like it”; “I like berries” or “I like collecting”

7

8

15

Habit/tradition

Social relations

Answers pointing at the implicitness of collecting, like “because it’s there”, or “medicinal herbs are easy to get”, but also: “base of national identity”, “This is the way, man can survive—living together with Nature”

2

6

8