Why Conserve and Manage Medicinal Plants?

Medicinal plants have always been a basic resource for human health. Appreciation for the preventative and therapeutic value of herbal remedies, and the additional benefits of their low cost, wide accessibility, and cultural relevance remains strong in many traditional cultures. Interest in and demand for traditional remedies and other plant-based health products (the so-called "botanicals") is increasing worldwide, particularly in rapidly expanding urban societies. Increased consumption of medicinal plants, through expansion of local, regional, and global markets, has increased pressure on a resource that is largely harvested from depleted wild populations in shrinking wild habitats.

Research on the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants and their habitats has fallen far behind the demand for this globally important resource. More than 70,000 species of plants are used medicinally somewhere on earth. It is likely that 15,000 of these species are threatened by over-harvest or loss of habitat. Capacity to assess and monitor the conservation status of medicinal plants, to manage harvest within the limits of sustainability, and to devise cost-effective alternatives for the production of medicinal plants as a resource is extremely limited worldwide. The scale of consumption of this resource has overwhelmed knowledge and tools to effectively implement conservation activities.

The current and potential value of medicinal plants - their value to local community health, to regional markets, and to global health security and trade - is widely recognized as a reason to conserve tropical forest ecosystems. However, many other ecosystems worldwide support a medicinal flora that is important to local health and economy, as well as to regional and global supplies of plant-based medicines. The wide range of habitats, taxonomic groups, and the variety of cultural, social, and economic conditions affecting their use present substantial challenges to conservation and management efforts for these resources. At the same time, the capacity, experience, and expertise developed in meeting these challenges for medicinal plant resource management will contribute more broadly to biodiversity resource management capability in any natural and social environment where plants are used as medicines.