FEARS have been raised that black market gangs are stripping the New Forest bare of its edible mushrooms.

Forestry Commission rangers have vowed to disrupt" commercial gangs who are robbing the forest of its funghi to sell at top hotels in back door deals.

The New Forest Association (NFA) says there's growing anger over unskilled labourers picking mushrooms without a licence and are warning that the mushrooms bought from the gangs, could kill.

Experts have warned that those pickers who don't know the different species are likely to take deadly toadstools and other poisonous fungi in mistake for edible and safe mushrooms.

Forestry Commission bosses have now vowed to "disrupt" commercial pickers plundering this autumn's crop - but campaigners are demanding an outright ban.

NFA spokesman Brian Tarnoff blasted it as an "unacceptable theft" that is spoiling the Forests autumn beauty and harming wildlife.

Speaking at the Verderers Court, he said: "Every year vans full of unskilled labourers descend upon the Forest and indiscriminately strip our woodlands of every bit of fungi they encounter.

"The NFA has been heartened to learn of the Forestry Commissions plans to disrupt commercial pickers and we support this as a positive first step.

"However we believe that going forward there should be a clear policy to ban fungi removal from the Crown lands.

"A total ban would send a message that this activity is no more acceptable than carting away bushels of bluebells or collecting birds eggs."

The gangs, thought to include cheap labour in the form of EU immigrants, arrive by the van-load and steal the mushrooms.

It is understood they then arrange deals to supply unscrupulous hotel for cash. Some London restaurants will pay more than £50 for just 2lbs of wild mushrooms.

Last year the Official Verderer, Dominic May, warned that gangs were plundering the Forest on an "industrial scale".

This is despite the fact the only commercial picking that's allowed is by Brigitte Tee-Hillman, who won a landmark ruling against the Forestry Commission in 2006 after a four-year legal battle.