Screening Global Challenges And Prospects Facing Medicinal And Aromatic Plants

This review summarizes the difficulties and problems facing MAPs as well as recommendations of overcoming challenge, and brings together the main issues relating to this very important subject. The issues must be addressed in order to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of the medicinal plants resource. Interest in medicinal and aromatic plants MAPs as a re-emerging health aid has been fuelled by the rising costs of prescription drugs in the maintenance of personal health and well-being, and the bioprospecting of new plant-derived drugs. Vacuum is likely to occur in the supply of raw plant materials that are being over-exploited by the pharmaceutical industry as well as the traditional practitioners. Besides, the major challenges for sustainable wild collection include: lack of knowledge about sustainable harvest rates and practices, undefined land use rights and lack of legislative and policy guidance. In situ conservation of these resources, however, alone cannot meet the ever increasing demand of pharmaceutical industry. Many signs reveal that MAPs are gradually facing extinction. They are: i People walk long distances to collect them. ii Some crpos are no longer found. iii What used to be a thick forest of diverse plant species is reduced to bush and areas that have floral fast disappearing. iv Many MAPs are not maturing and seeding because the young plants are being harvested before they mature. Hence, It is necessary to initiate systematic cultivation of medicinal plants in order to conserve biodiversity and protect endangered species. Efforts are also required to suggest appropriate cropping patterns for the incorporation of these plants into the conventional agricultural and forestry cropping systems. In order to initiate systematic cultivation of MAPs high yielding varieties have to be selected. It is therefore necessary to collect, conserve and evaluate germplasm and to develop agro technologies for wild crops with potential for farming. Sometimes high yielding varieties have also to be developed by selective breeding or clonal micro-propagation. The selected propagation materials have to be distributed to the cultivators either through nurseries or seed banks. Identifying the conservation benefits and costs of the different production systems for MAPs should help guide policies as to whether species conservation should take place in nature or the nursery, or both

___

  • Iqbal M, International trade in non-wood forest products: an overview. FAO , 1993, Rome.
  • Walter S, Non-wood forest products in Africa: a regional and national overview. Les produits forestiers non ligneux en Afrique: un aperçu régional et national. Working Paper/Document de Travail nr. FOPW/01/1, 2001, FAO Forestry Department, Rome.
  • Gurib-Fakim A, Molecular Aspects of Medicine, 27 (2006): 1–93.
  • Schmincke KH, Medicinal Plants for forest conservation and healthcare. Non- Wood Forest Products 11, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2003.
  • Lucy H, Edgar JD, Electronic Journal of Biotechnology, 2(2) (1999): 1-15.
  • Cowman MM, Clinical Microbiology Review, 12 (1999): 561-582.
  • Adesokan AA, Yakubu MT, Owoyele BV, Akanji MA, Soladoye A, Lawal OK, African Journal of Biochemistry Research, 2(7) (2008): 165-169.
  • Schippmann U, Medicinal Plants Significant Trade Study. German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, 2001, Bonn, Germany.
  • Farnsworth NR, Soejarto DD, Global importance of medicinal plants, in: Akerele O, Heywood V, Synge H (eds.), The Conservation of Medicinal Plants. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 25–51, 1991.
  • Schippmann U, Leaman DJ, Cunningham AB, Impact of Cultivation and Gathering of Medicinal Plants on Biodiversity: Global Trends and Issues. Inter- Department Working Group on Biology Diversity for Food and Agriculture, FAO, 2002, Rome, Italy.
  • Pei S, Ethnobotany and modernisation of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
  • Shiva V, Protecting our Biological and Intellectual Heritage in the Age of Biopiracy. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resources Policy, 1996, New Delhi, India.
  • Moerman DE, Native North American food and medicinal plants: epistemological considerations, In: Prendergast H.D.V., Etkin N.L., Harris D.R. and Houghton P.J. (eds.), Plants for Food and Medicine. Proceedings from a Joint Conference of the Society for Economic Botany and the International Society for Ethnopharmacology, London, 1–6 July 1996. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK, pp. 69–74, 1998.
  • Pei S, Ethnobotanical approaches of traditional medicine studies: Asian Pharmaceutical Botany 39 (2001): 74–79.
  • Dev S, Environmental Health Perspectives, 107 (1999): 783–789.
  • Desai PR, Golden Resrach Thoughts, 1(6) (2011): 1–4.
  • Vorhies F, The global dimension of threatened medicinal plants from a conservation point of view. In: Honnef S, Melisch R, (eds.), Medicinal Utilization of Wild Species: Challenge for Man and Nature in the New Millennium. WWF Germany/TRAFFIC Europe-Germany, EXPO 2000, Hannover, Germany, pp. 26–29, 2000.
  • Menges ES, The application of minimum viable population theory to plants. In: Falk DA, Holsinger KE (eds.), Genetics and Conservation of Rare Plants. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 45–61. 1991.
  • Hamilton AC, Biodiversity and Conservation, 13 (2004): 1477–1517.
  • Craig S, Himalayan healers in transition: professionalisation, identity and conservation among Tibetan medicine practitioners in Nepal, Paper at a Workshop on Wise Practices and Experiential Learning in the Conservation and Management of Himalayan Medicinal Plants, 2002, Kathmandu, Nepal.
  • Misra SS, Classical quality standards in Ayurvedic Medical Sciences.
  • Dutfield G, Developing and implementing national systems for protecting traditional knowledge: a review of experiences in selected developing countries. In: Proceedings of Expert Meeting on National Systems and National Experiences for Protecting Knowledge, Innovations and Practices, Geneva, 2003, Switzerland.
  • Schippmann UWE, Leman D, Cunningham AB, A comparison of cultivation and wild collection of medicinal and aromatic plants under sustainability aspects. In: Bogers RJ, Craker LE, Lange D, (eds.), Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Netherlands, pp.75–95, 2006.
  • Leaman DJ, Medicinal Plant Conservation, 9(10) (2004): 7–8.
  • Walter S, Medicinal Plant Conservation, 8 (2002): 3–9.
  • Cunningham AB, Medicinal Plant Conservation, 7 (2001): 21–22.
  • Laird SA, Kate K, Linking biodiversity prospecting and forest conservation. In: Pagiola S, Bishop J, Landell-Mills N, (eds.), Selling Forest Environmental Services. Earthscan, London, pp. 151–172, 2002.
Manas Journal of Engineering-Cover
  • ISSN: 1694-7398
  • Yayın Aralığı: Yılda 2 Sayı
  • Başlangıç: 2001
  • Yayıncı: KIRGIZİSTAN-TÜRKİYE MANAS ÜNİVERSİTESİ