BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS

During the past decade, demand for medicinal plants and their products as well as health systems have attracted global interests. India, being the botanical garden and treasure house of biodiversity with its diverse ecological conditions, rich ethnic diversity and a strong traditional knowledge base, accounts for about 45,000 plant species. Out of these about 15,000 species are known to be used medicinally. More than ninety percent of the herbal industry’s requirement is met from the forests resulting into their destruction. There is no reliable assessment of the volume or value of the herb related trade in India. However, conservative estimates put the quantity of dry raw material collected at 0.5 Million tonnes each year. About ninety percent of medicinal plants are collected from wild and growing demand is putting a heavy strain on the existing natural resources. Over seventy percent of plant collections involve destructive harvesting because of the use of parts like roots, bark, wood, stem and the whole plant in case of herbs. In some of the medicinal plants whole plant is utilized leading to their irreversible damage and accelerated depletion of the natural capital base. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain basic requirements of in situ conservation of medicinal plants bio-resources in their habitat on sustained yield basis in ‘viable populations’. The ‘Viable Population’ concept used earlier for endangered fauna has to be extended to threatened plants too. Basic optimal size that is required to conserve the ‘core area’ within range of natural distribution has to be ensured. Conservation of the entire habitat has to be done by judiciously managing ‘Edge Effect’ wherever required as many medicinal plants are naturally present in Ecotones. Thus there is a strong felt need to conserve the biodiversity of overexploited species due to large scale collection from natural habitats. In order to fulfill this urgent aim both in situ and ex situ conservation measures must be taken up immediately. Special emphasis should be given to evaluation, isolation and characterization of elite germplasm of important endangered and threatened medicinal plant species as there is immediate threat to their existence. Subsequently top priority should be accorded to in situ conservation of such naturally occurring forest and non-forest areas by clearly demarcating them as Medicinal Plant Conservation Reserves (MPCR). Ex situ conservation should be done preferably within the natural areas of distribution and the selected germplasm should be widely spaced and broad based including all the varieties and strains existing within the entire range spread over the geographical distribution of the particular species. Presently some of the species deserving greater emphasis for both in situ and ex situ conservation may be mentioned as Chlorophytum arundinaceum, Chlorophytum tuberosum, Rauvolfia serpentina, Andrographis paniculata, Acorus calamus and Withania somnifera etc.