We must address extinction threat to wild medicines
Most people worldwide, including 80 per cent of all Africans, rely on
herbal medicines obtained mostly from wild plants. But some 15,000 of
50,000 medicinal species are under threat of extinction, according to
a report this week from international conservation group Plantlife.
Shortages have been reported in China, India, Kenya, Nepal, Tanzania
and Uganda. Commercial over-harvesting does the most harm, though
pollution, competition from invasive species and habitat destruction
all contribute. “Commercial collectors generally harvest medicinal
plants with little care for sustainability,” the Plantlife report
says.
“This can be partly through ignorance, but [happens] mainly
because such collection is unorganised and competitive.”Medicinal
trees at risk include the Himalayan yew (Taxus wallichiana), a source
of the anti-cancer drug, paclitaxel; the pepper-bark tree (Warburgia),
which yields an antimalarial; and the African cherry (Prunus
africana), an extract from which is used to treat a prostate
condition. The solution, says the report’s author, Alan Hamilton, is
to provide local communities with incentives to protect these plants.
Ten grass-roots projects studied by Plantlife in India, Pakistan,
China, Nepal, Uganda and Kenya showed this approach can succeed. In
Uganda, the project has ensured the sustainable supply of low-cost
malaria treatments, and in China a community-run medicinal plant
reserve has been created for the first time. “Improving health,
earning an income and maintaining cultural traditions are important in
motivating people to conserve medicinal plants, and thus the
habitats,” says Hamilton. “In conservation you’ve got to go with what
people are interested in.” Ghillean Prance, the former director of the
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, agrees that medicinal plants
are in dire need of protection. “Not nearly enough is being done,” he
told New Scientist. “We tend to destroy the very plants that are of
most use to us.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126903.200-medicinal-plants-on-verge-of-extinction.html
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