Medicinal Species Under Threat

[whitewind]

I have just been reading a text about rare and endangered medicinal plants in India, the list is frighteningly long - and one of the main reasons seems to be that pharmaceutical companies are wild collecting species for harvest. It was my idea to try and make a list of threatened plants so we could keep an eye out for them and then try to help distribute them among the community.

In India, the Foundation for Rehabilitation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), a non-

government voluntary organization based at Bangalore, has compiled a list of 352

medicinal plant species of South India which require urgent conservation measures

and of these, 226 are collected from the forest for their use by the pharmaceutical

industries. The CAMP workshops identified 112 threatened medicinal plants in

South India. These include critically endangered species such as Coscinium

fenestratum, Kaempferia galanga, Piper barberi, Trichopus zeylanicus, Valeriana

leschenaultii and Vateria macrocarpa; endangered species such as Rauvolfia serpentina,

Pterocarpus santalinus, Santlum album, Swertii lawii, and Gymnema sylvestris. Few

species were designated extinct namely: Aerva wightii, Asparagus rottlerii, Madhuca

insignis and Plectranthus vettivariodes.

LINK

Of this list, I recognise several as important to this community, and others as which might be of interest.

This is a great read, further down comes this paragraph:

Understanding the diversity of medicinal plants

As noted earlier, the distribution and diversity of medicinal plants is not well

documented and many of the collectors/botanists paid more attention to the

description of the species and less attention to population parameters and

intraspecific diversity. The biodiversity of medicinal plants is yet to be well studied

in many Asian countries and assumes priority, in view of the extensive destruction of

plant rich habitats in tropical conditions. The habit, growth form, phenology and

other characteristics of medicinal plants need to be well documented. Substantial

body of information has been generated in recent years through many publications

such as proceedings of international meetings highlighting the importance of

screening, bioprospecting and cultivation of medicinal plants (Farnsworth 1988;

Akerle et al. 1991, Anon 1994; Sassoon 1996; Comer and Debus 1996; Adjanohoun

1996 Salleh et al. 1997; Gautam et al. 1998). Many of the Asian plant species listed that

yield high value products include Catharanthus (Vinca), Rauvolfia, Cephaelis, Coptis,

Papaver, Dioscorea, Panax, Podophyllum and others i.e. Aloe, Commiphora, Mentha,

Ocimum, Cymbopogon, Psyllium, Azadirachta, Artemisia, Cassia, Psoralea, Chlorophytum,

Pogostemon, Piper, Vetiveria (Gupta and Chadha 1995; Ayensu 1996). However, these

species have to be critically studied to identify varietal differences, conserve the

variation and use the superior plants or clones for sustainable use. Rehabilitation and

management of natural resources with due regard for saving biodiversity are the

important issues of resource management. Conserving the different but interacting

ecosystems in the adjacent areas is also important to conserve medicinal plants

(Natesh 2000).

 

It becomes clearer the more I read what a valuable contribution our community has in preserving plants which are already threatened in the wild, or may become threatened. It is worth noting also that entheogenic plants are already lower down the list of medicinal plant priorities because of the way our government and society perceive them. I have just been reading texts on magical use of plants in Papua New Guinea; much of the research has been undertaken by christian missionaries and the plant use information is very sketchy, concentrating on non-specific poisons and toxins, this making the ethnobotanic use of plants look more like voodoo than tribal herbalism - not that there are't some ugly things going on over there, but I fear that traditional use of plants will be glossed over by christian fear of witchcraft and media hype combined. Papua New Guinea is undergoing a massive amount of environmental destruction, and it is estimated that up to 25% of it's wild rainforest has been destroyed between 1972 and 2002, with about 1.4% is being lost annually. Up to half may be seriously degraded by the end of this decade, making research even more urgent than ever.

Here is a picture of the envisaged plan of attack for conserving rare and threatened species. I guess most of us would fall under the Physic / Herbal Gardens level, although getting hold of live plant material can be difficult, especially in Australia. I can't imagine how all the Botanic Gardens in the world could, even if they had the funds, save many of the species that are going to go extinct over the next decade, so it might end up being up to us to help out in whatever way we can.

EDIT: cropped image

Edited April 14, 2012 by whitewind

[RyanVolle]

Under threat? I'm sorry but I have not thought of plants being under threat because they reproduce so well, so effectively, so rapidly, and so efficiently. Can they not rapid reproduce (I made that myself) these plants in a controlled environment? The rapid reproducing is taking as much cutting or seeds as possible in a short amount of time without killing the mother plant and repeat the process on all other plants. The species should be reproducing exponentially by then if I'm right.

[Chef's Foreskin]

That is a long list indeed!

[whitewind]

Under threat? I'm sorry but I have not thought of plants being under threat because they reproduce so well, so effectively, so rapidly, and so efficiently. Can they not rapid reproduce (I made that myself) these plants in a controlled environment? The rapid reproducing is taking as much cutting or seeds as possible in a short amount of time without killing the mother plant and repeat the process on all other plants. The species should be reproducing exponentially by then if I'm right.

 

Well, not if they are being removed before they get the chance to reproduce, which is what is happening here. The companies who are stealing from the forests should be rapidly reproducing these plants in controlled environments, and it is quite possible they would get better results doing so, but for short term profit they are stealing wild plants and causing them to become extinct. Unless there is a rigid system in place like the one we have in Australia, where there is an agreement backed by law not to steal from the environment (by having National Parks which are off-limits to exploitation) then things will just be taken. Another problem with stealing from the wild is that the genetic diversity becomes depleted, which makes it more difficult for the plant to compete in the wild against other plants or insects.

The advantages for growing in controlled environments would be, control of disease, regularity of stock (i.e. single clones will produce the same chemical make-up each time) ease of harvest and rapid reproduction and growth, plus of course the biggest bonus the natural environment doesn't become destroyed and stop producing the wonderful things we need to survive on this planet - clean water, clean air, and a hugely diverse pool of resources we can learn from and slowly integrate in to our lives.