Resources and Distribution

Medicinal Plants Bioresources Forest-based medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) are an essential part of traditional health care systems. Their gathering and cultivation provide a critical source of income for many rural communities, especially landless poor and marginalized farmers. MAPs are also inextricably linked to the region's natural biodiversity. Unfortunately, MAPs are increasingly threatened by various environmental, socioeconomic and institutional problems. At the same time traditional and indigenous knowledge about these plants is weakening and, in some cases, vanishing altogether. While attempts have been made (both at local and national levels) to address these issues, they have suffered from inadequate funding, a lack of government prioritization, and insufficient information sharing and coordination among stakeholders. After a number of years of supporting research on MAPs around the world by organizations like IDRC, Ford Foundation, and others a number of networks such as the Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Program in Asia (MAPS) have been established in Asia.
The main goal of the Forest Medicinal Plants (FMP) is to institute a system of long-term sustainable and equitable use of MAPs. The objective is to improve resource conservation and livelihood security in rural and marginalized communities. The mechanism is the design, support and coordination of a holistic research program to strengthen linkages between stakeholders within the MAP production to consumption chain. This is being achieved through strategic research, partnership building and the promotion of regional and international networking. MAPS's focus currently encompasses the entire South Asian region, with ongoing plans to reach out to other parts of Asia. Through regional, national and local partners, including government organizations (GOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community-based organizations (CBOs), national research institutions and universities, MAPS plans to work with regional network of expertise in community-based MAP conservation, participatory research, and documentation.

Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs): Benefits & Challenges

South Asia is home to many rich, traditional systems of medicine. Ayurvedic methods date back to 5000 B.C. Along with the Unani, Siddha and Tibetan systems, they remain an important source of everyday health and livelihood for tens of millions of people. Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs), including trees, shrubs, grasses and vines, are a central resource for these traditional health systems, as well as for pharmaceutical (or allopathic) medicines. There are more than 8,000 plant species in South Asia with known medicinal uses.

Medicinal plants are an accessible, affordable and culturally appropriate source of primary health care for more than 80% of Asia's population (WHO). Marginalized, rural and indigenous people, who can not afford or access formal health care systems, are especially dependent on these culturally familiar, technically simple, financially affordable and generally effective traditional medicines. As such, there is widespread interest in promoting traditional health systems to meet primary health care needs. This is especially true in South Asia, as prices of modern medicines spiral and governments find it increasingly difficult to meet the cost of pharmaceutical-based health care. Throughout the region, there is strong and sustained public support for the protection and promotion of the cultural and spiritual values of traditional medicines.

Widespread Demand for MAPs

Conservative estimates put the monetary value of MAP-related global trade at over 60 billion USD (Govt. of India, 2000; Nagpal & Karki, 2004). With increasing popular demand for medicinal plants, both in South Asia and internationally, this trade is expected to grow to 5 trillion by the year 2050 (FRLHT, 1996). Besides health benefits, MAPs also provide crucial livelihood options for millions of rural people in South Asia, particularly women, tribal peoples, and the very poor. India is the centre of South Asia's export trade in medicinal plants, and in this country alone, it is estimated that the collection and processing of medicinal plants contributes to at least 35 million workdays of employment a year. Unfortunately, while demand rises, inequitable trade practices have meant that only a small margin of the profits from MAPs trickle down to the collectors and harvesters. Highly developed illegal trading networks in Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Myanmar control the raw MAPs trade, through lax border controls. Despite this, no regional collaboration in implementing international covenants relating to biodiversity exists to stem this growing illegal market.

Impacts of Commercialization

The expansion of unregulated trade and commercial use of MAPs poses a major threat to biodiversity in the region. Local communities tend to collect the highest value or most popular plant species, leading to over-harvesting or species extinction. Even when MAP species are safely cultivated, if done with mono-cropping systems, local biodiversity can be weakened. Finally, as 95 % of MAPs are harvested and collected in wild, the alarming levels of deforestation and ecosystem degradation in the region are also contributing to a decline in MAPs. Combined, all of these factors have severely reduced the availability of medicinal plant ingredients and the overall environmental sustainability of the region. Along with the deterioration of resources, the cultural heritage surrounding MAP use is being eroded. Unstandardized expertise and knowledge of traditional systems of medicine, as well as inadequate processing and storage facilities, can result in ineffective or unsafe treatments. The absence of institutional support, appropriate validation systems, and quality control protocol for indigenous health practices, threatens valuable MAP knowledge and use practices, as well as public health.

Multiple Benefits of Medicinal Plants:

MPs offer a wide range of subsistence, cultural and monetary benefits to people in the world. They provide affordable means of primary health care to poor and marginalized people, especially in impoverished rural areas. In some countries like China, Nepal & India, they are an important revenue generating resources providing critical income to economically marginalized and indigenous people. But most important, in a condition of sustainable harvesting and optimal usage, the medicinal plants could prove to be a model resource that can benefit both the environment and livelihoods in a balanced manner. The real challenge is how to strike this critical balance? Given the fact that there are multiple benefits of MPs including: 1) improved access to primary healthcare, 2) enhanced livelihood security, 3) potentially sustainable use of the biodiversity, and 4) improved benefit sharing with local communities, the promotion of sustainable management of medicinal plants can help the biodiversity rich countries to meet the international obligations such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In the broader sense, medicinal plants can also contribute to address the chronic problem of global poverty and hunger. The realization of mega global targets such as those set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), Poverty Reduction Strategy and Programs (PRSP) etc. will require interventions which are grass roots-based, poor-centred and livelihood focused. Put differently medicinal plants can meet the basic needs of the poor rural people. For example, pro-poor marketing and enterprise development activities in medicinal plants can help poor collectors and growers of medicinal plants to increase their household income, which is dwindling due to increased input costs and decreasing returns.

For example, China is estimated to have 12,807 species of plants out of which 11,146 are classified as medicinal plants used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). It is estimated that up to 492 species are currently under cultivation and the remaining 10,654 species are harvested from wild habitats (SEPA, 1997). According to Wang etc. (2002), the total production from wild sources is 8.5 million tons and the cultivated medicinal plants production was estimated to be 0.3 million tons in 2001-02. These produce not only contribute to the health of Chinese people but also add approximately 2 billion USD to the national economy annually. In the southwest mountainous province of Guizhou, the contribution of medicinal plants is reported to be about 10 percent of the province’s GDP in 2002 (equivalent to half billion US dollars) (Pei Shengzi, 2003).

Medicinal, aromatic and dye plants (MADPs) also have potential to present as commodities with competitive advantages for the poor regions of Asia, Africa & Latin America. It is observed that some of the poorest regions of the world such as the western and eastern regions of Himalayas, Borneo and Sumatra regions in Asia; Congo basin in Africa and Amazon catchments in South America are also rich in biological diversity where medicinal plants and other NTFP species grow in abundance. If we can promote a balanced conservation and cultivation of MADPs, rural poverty can be alleviated, gender imbalances can be addressed and local economy improved.

More broadly, many medicinal plants are found in forest ecosystems, where they are used to meet the health care needs and livelihoods pursuits of indigenous and local communities. Forests have been targeted in Central America and the Caribbean as priority eco-regions for conservation (IDRC, 2000). MPs are increasingly being recognized as an important resources for sustainable development, particularly as sources of safe, effective, and accessible health care that integrates traditional and community knowledge, innovations, and practices with modern scientific approaches to health research.