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From the experiences in China and India it can be seen that medicinal plants constitute one of the important overlooked areas of international development. The plants represent a form of biodiversity with the potential to do much good, and not just in the field of healthcare. Indeed, the production and processing of medicinal plants offers the possibility of fundamentally upgrading the lives and well-being of peoples in many rural regions. It can also help the environment and protect habitats and biodiversity throughout the developing world.
Here, for instance, are some of the apparent lessons on why the medicinal plants deserve serious consideration.
Value. Of all the resources in the tropics, medicinal plants are among the most valuable. They sell not by the ton nor even by the kilo, but usually by the grain. They include some of the most sought after natural products. There is a rising export trade and an ever increasing local demand.
Frangibility. Of all the traditional knowledge to be found in Africa, Asia and Latin America, that dealing with medicine is among the most vulnerable, and is being lost perhaps faster than any other body of indigenous intellectual heritage. Yet it is also among the most useful to the nations themselves as well as to the rest of the world.
Helping the Poor. Typically, medicinal plants are more than just high in value, they are non-perishable and are easy to transport and handle (compared to, say, food crops or tree products). Thus they can be produced in small plots or in remote areas where other options are minimal. This feature they share with products from the opium poppy or coca plant, and medicinal plants are a likely source of alternatives. Indeed, the organized production of certain medicinal plants could help millions stay on the land, and it might even lure millions more back from the cities.
Conserving Natural Habitats. Medicinal plants are among the best candidates for helping conserve natural habitats. The suggestion has been made, for example, that the organized production of forest medicinal plants in India's tiger reserves will help make the reserves financially self-sustaining without affecting the animal life. It would also provide local jobs and may swing the public's attitudes solidly in favor of protecting the reserves, especially from land-grabbers. Around the developing world, opportunities like this are legion, but they are not being exploited while plants, animals and whole habitats plunge toward extinction.
Increasing Sustainability. Of all the possibilities for making agroforestry work, medicinal plants are among the best. The various vines and herbs and shrubs lend themselves to mixed cultivation systems better than to the monocultures that produce cereals and roots and pastures. Some, such as ginseng, work as understory crops that can transform the economics of, and attitudes towards, tree planting and conservation forestry. After all, a ton of ginseng root sells for a quarter of a million dollars, wholesale.
Healthcare and Rural Well-Being. Of all the options for helping the well-being of the poorest segments of global society, the medicinal plants are among the best. Whether or not the efficacy is up to the standards of the West is irrelevant when the people cannot afford pharmaceuticals, as is the case for several billion souls. Inexpensive and seemingly effective herbal treatments exist for skin ailments, minor pain, infections, anemia, other nutritional disorders, and many more complaints that are mundane rather than lifethreatening.
So far, only China and India have solidly grasped the possibilities inherent in medicinal plants. In its own way each is starting to confront the threat to its medicinal-plant heritage.
As of now, China and India are the only countries where government policies seek to integrate the traditional and Western medical systems at all levels of healthcare. This has put an especially heavy burden on their stocks of wild medicinal plants. These plants are becoming increasingly rare or expensive due to overharvesting and loss of natural habitat.
With no precedents for medicinal-plant conservation and cultivation research, the examples of China and India must serve as the role models for the rest of the world. This is important also because either India or China could become the world's largest pharmaceutical market. Together they would dominate the traditional medicine usage worldwide.
In China it is the government that is endeavoring to utilize available traditional field and clinical knowledge at all levels of medicinal-plant production: breeding, cultivation, harvesting, processing and marketing. This experience offers many lessons to other developing countries.
India, with its free-market system, has the necessary infrastructure to support the integration of the two healthcare systems. So far, however, there has been little effort to bring together public research institutions (government and university) and the private sector (industry and NGOs) to focus on the plight of the healing herbs.
As it now stands, local collectors in India receive minimal benefit from wild-plant collections. They are unorganized and typically sell their products into markets controlled by unscrupulous middlemen. To date, there has been no significant effort to organize small rural enterprises that can provide income and employment to rural women and men for cultivating, processing and marketing herbal products.
Of all the possibilities for improving the lives of the rural poor, medicinal plants are one of the best. It is unlikely that the vast majority of peoples in developing countries will ever be self-reliant in their primary healthcare needs without recourse to these plants. Indeed, it is unlikely that drastic social, technical or economic changes are going to upset the medicinalplant situation in the majority of developing countries during the next decade. Hence, the establishment of local herbal-product industries would go a long way to provide for local healthcare needs.
Women in many parts of the world are the key to the future integration of traditional and Western medical practices. They must play a pivotal role in defining future medicinalplant conservation, cultivation and enhancement strategies.
Immediate research efforts should be directed towards those traditional medicines that may be of use: (i) in combating "refractory diseases" for which Western medicine has no longlasting remedies; and (ii) as supplements to Western drug products.
An important first step to characterize this informal sector is the development of appropriate value indicators that reflect the perceptions of different stakeholder groups. Such indicators should include aspects of indigenous medical, cultural, ecological, and environmental values placed upon medicinal plants by local people in developing countries. The investment costs would be relatively small, and the acquired knowledge and experience would prove useful when the diversification stage is reached.
It is the rural people who have the most to lose if medicinal-plant diversity continues to decline. It is also the rural people who have the most to gain by the establishment of programs to conserve, cultivate and market medicinal plants.
The protection and revival of traditional medicine knowledge and practice in thousands of ethnic communities is an important means of providing affordable and sustainable healthcare. The knowledge that traditional health practitioners, women and farmers can bring to identifying, implementing and managing medicinal-plant conservation and cultivation programs is seldom sought or utilized. Consequently, local health traditionsmany of which are oral in nature and therefore largely undocumented--are being lost. Many of those rely on medicinal plants.
The first step in developing a successful strategy to conserve, enhance and sustainably utilize medicinal-plant resources is to document the medicinal plants and their use in herbal formulations, and establish cultivation programs in collaboration with farmers and agricultural research stations.
Of all the developing nations, only China and India have so far officially accepted traditional medicine as an integral part of the formal health system. However, an increasing number of developing countries (Ghana and Zimbabwe among them) recognize the benefits of preserving and more fully exploiting traditional medicine, and are actively seeking ways and means of integrating the traditional and Western medicine systems.
China and India can play an important role in transferring knowledge (South-North as well as South-South) relating to medicinal-plant conservation, cultivation methodologies, harvesting, storage, processing and marketing. However, although these two may serve as role models, Africa and Latin America have their own medicinal plants and traditional healthcare systems. Moreover, different countries have different cultural backgrounds, and healthcare needs.
The revolution in electronic communication is providing unprecedented opportunities -to learn about and to efficiently manage resources. This should allow traditional expertise to be more readily integrated with Western medical knowledge in addressing local, regional and global healthcare issues.
Various international agencies-among them WCMC, IUCN, WWT, IDRC, and UNESCOare involved to some extent in medicinal-plant biodiversity conservation. The International Council for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ICMAP) was formed in 1993 and includes representatives of supporting and affiliated organizations. Recently a Medicinal Plant Specialist Group was formed that concentrates its efforts on the medicinal-plant species with high conservation priority. All such agencies should be encouraged to include efforts to establish cultivation programs as part of their medicinalplant conservation objectives.
The use of advanced information and communications systems (GIS database, multimedia) can lead to a greater awareness of, and sensitivity to, indigenous medicinalplant knowledge.
With the possible exception of China, developing countries lack a national or regional agency with an exclusive mandate for medicinal-plant conservation and cultivation. Action is needed to produce clearly-defined policies to regulate medicinal-plant conservation, cultivation, and trade practices. This requires that governments recognize the inter-sectoral relationship between natural resource management, agriculture and forestry, trade and commerce, and healthcare.
Recognizing the widespread reliance of rural and urban peoples on medicinal plants for their basic healthcare needs, a biodiversity policy should explicitly identify the importance of sustainable use of medicinal plants and their habitat conservation.
An active education and awareness program that recognizes the needs of indigenous peoples, local communities (especially women), private businesses and government agencies (state and national) is imperative if regulatory policies are to promote successfully the conservation and protection of medicinal plants.
Clear policies and legislation that recognize the legal rights of individuals and communities who use and depend on medicinal plants for the healthcare needs should be affirmed by governments to protect the rights of customary knowledge holders.
To inhibit trade of threatened and vulnerable medicinal-plant species both developing and developed countries must create a statutory framework and then fully fund its implementation. A closer link with CITES would be appropriate.
A major constraint to the identification of national policies and regulations is the lack of national inventories and prescription guidelines (pharmacopoeias).
Medicinal plants already contribute substantially to the poor people's well-being and will continue to do so. Indeed, without recourse to medicinal plants it seems unlikely that the vast majority of peoples in developing countries will ever be able to meet their primary healthcare needs.
Two separate commerces in medicinal plants, the formal and informal markets, co-exist side by side. The first is regulated by governments (at least to some extent) and provides both crude and processed herbal products to the public with a certain measure of quality control. The informal market, on the other hand, operates without oversight. It provides basic healthcare needs to the majority of peoples in many developing countries but without consumer protections.
The informal market is extremely difficult to evaluate. Many healthcare needs are provided without a cash transaction. Instead payment is made in labor or other "in-kind" services. Furthermore, the unregulated informal market has yet to recognize the need to be involved in conservation programs. Neither China nor India have any comprehensive understanding of the extent or economic value of the informal market - a commerce that must contribute billions of dollars annually to their economies. As difficult as it might be to document these transactions, attempts must be made, even if they result in only rough estimates.
The case has been made recently that the market returns from bioprospecting are insufficient and the incentives for habitat conservation by private pharmaceutical research to be modest. Such might be the case for multinational pharmaceutical companies. However, such is not the case for the established traditional pharmaceutical companies. for the foreseeable future, they will rely totally on medicinal plants for drug preparation. Consequently their incentives to be involved in conservation and cultivation are legitimate and economically necessary. At the same time it has been suggested the need for new economic models and strategies for the world's agricultural and pharmaceutical industries offers opportunities for enlightened bioprospecting that replaces the spectrum of paternalism with the spectrum of equity.
Recognizing the needs of pharmaceutical industries (where present) to meet the increasing public demand for plant-derived drugs, every effort must be made to promote sustainable production and procurement of unadulterated raw material. The economic advantages of using domestic raw materials must consider job creation opportunities in agriculture and industry, and the availability of affordable plant-derived drugs for healthcare. Financial investment in the establishment of developing country R&D capability should encourage a greater interest for conservation and cultivation by local pharmaceutical industries.
Apparently no studies have been carried out in either China or India to document total annual tonnage purchased, sustainability of raw material supply, future trends in hospitaland consumer use, and industry growth potential. Neither is there any information to identify the precise problems facing the industry.
Even though the trade cannot be quantified, some measure of its size can be deduced by considering what would happen if supplies of medicinal-plant raw materials were eliminated. The local (and especially poor) populations would have to rely on synthetic drugs-local and/or imported. The result would be a potentially catastrophic blow to productivity, balance of payments, national debt and gross domestic product.
Looking forward, it is clear that national governments, foreign-aid agencies, and development banks must think about creating infrastructures for the conservation, and cultivation of medicinal plants. These social and commercial underpinnings are needed to link the production of medicinal plants with the provision of affordable healthcare to those in need. Such a step will enhance the rational convergence between traditional and modem medicine that is increasingly being advocated. In almost every case conservation will have to provide a big part of the production.
As has been noted, medicinal plants are predominantly harvested from the wild. This means that production is often unpredictable and supplies can quickly vary between scarcity and over-supply. This is not a good situation in a time when demand is dramatically increasing,
The probable loss of genetic diversity within each species is a special concern. As with all plant species, certain specimens or locations will have exceptional levels of activity. It seems likely that the medicinally more active stands will attract the greatest exploitation. This could destroy the effectiveness of the species. Medicinal-plant biodiversity in developing countries is often poorly characterized, and there is a critical lack of research on management methods that combine biological, physical, economic and social variables.
The unsustainable, unregulated and indiscriminate harvesting of medicinal plants is being compounded by the very poor level of awareness of the biology and ecology of the species concerned. Even the collectors and traders who make their livelihood from such species often know little. Thus, large quantities of medicinal plants go to waste during such operations as logging, slashand-burn, plowing, and the burning of what look like mere "weeds."
Globally, the number of medicinal plants currently protected under rare and endangered species legislation is minuscule. Signatories to the Convention on Biological Diversity are obliged to protect their medicinal-plant resources, but often lack the necessary resources and skilled staff to do so, and may even be unaware of their importance.
While natural ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and grasslands can be protected by legislation, many other medicinal-plant habitats-such as marginal, remote, wastelands, roadsides, or even gardens-cannot. An education program developed in collaboration with local collectors, dispensaries, and beneficiaries should be a priority. The intention should be to reverse the rising tendency to exploit unprotected wild stocks with scant respect for the adverse effects such random extraction has on natural populations. Such a program should clearly identify the value of medicinal plants, the reasons for conserving the habitats, the close link to individual and family health needs, and the longterm economic returns that can accrue from protecting medicinal plants and their associated wild species.
It is important that the development, or expansion, of a botanically-based pharmaceutical industry be backed by active research and development. This will permit successful transfer and adaptation of technology on a north-south or south-south basis and ensure proper growth and maintenance of the industry. The outcome would be the production of:
· standardized traditional medicines, galenicals, and extracts;
· the formulation and development of dosage forms;
· the development of new preparations based on traditional pharmacopoeias;
· research and development in processing and formulation; and
· basic chemical and pharmacological studies.
There is a need to document the ideal season and time for harvesting of bulk collections and storage conditions necessary to protect the active principals and preserve their optimum therapeutic value. This is best achieved if they are cultivated and processed under quality-controlled conditions preferably close to the site of harvest. Homogeneity of product and correct drying often represents the most delicate and essential step in the entire manufacturing process.
Technical assistance will be required. The introduction of pilot-plant processing facilities requires investment. This perhaps may be achieved through various forms of joint industrial venture between local sponsors and with foreign partners. The link between medicinal-plant conservation, affordable healthcare, industrial development, and 4 billion stakeholders should be appealing to potential investors.
For the immediate future, medicinal-plant farming will be a vital complement and alternative to collecting plants from the wild. Such cultivation will permit improved reliability of supply, and uniform quality of raw materials whose properties can be standardized. Presently cultivation is constrained by a lack of proven methodologies and research funds.
The breeding of medicinal-plant cultivars with desirable agronomic and therapeutic chemical derivatives makes it possible to conserve and selectively utilize highly valuable in-situ germplasm, and ex-situ germplasm in botanic gardens, and in field seedbanks. Cultivation will permit production of uniform materials whose properties can be standardized and from which crude drugs can be obtained unadulterated.
As of now, there are few proven or transferable cultivation methodologies for medicinal plants. Data on plants held in botanic gardens is most readily accessible and a useful starting point. However, the knowledge and collaboration of women, farmers, and traditional health practitioners would be very helpful in identifying, implementing and managing future medicinal-plant cultivation. Many medicinal plants grow well on marginal, remote, or degraded lands with low monetary inputs. Needed are intensive studies on selected medicinal plants to determine optimum environmental requirements for sustainable production. These should be done in collaboration with local farmers.
Farmers and rural communities also have an important role to play developing new sustainable cultivation practices that make medicinal plants compatible with existing food cropping systems and create income generation opportunities to larger numbers of poor people.
The breeding of improved cultivars adapted to different
agro-ecological regions will allow cultivation of medicinal plants under a wide
range of conditions outside the present
sites of collection. An objective,
pragmatic approach is required to selecting a realistic number species among the
many hundreds potentially available for cultivation trials. The needs,
quantities, and frequency of use by traditional health practitioners, women, and
pharmaceutical industries in each developing country must be taken into account.
Of all the new frontiers of agriculture, the cultivation of medicinal plants is among the most powerful for doing good for the world. It has the possibility of contributing to all the above-mentioned features: of providing the poor with a (legal) route out of poverty, of saving a heritage of human knowledge and putting it to global use, of revitalizing the economies of run-down rural regions, of saving natural biodiversity as distinct as the Bengal tiger, and of improving the output from tree plantations and natural forests of various kinds. In a sense, medicinal plants can become a financial and biological underpinning that makes numerous agricultural and forestry production systems-including some that are the most fragile and worrisome to the world-sustainable.
All in all, medicinal-plant conservation and cultivation research and development programs can have a major impact by increasing community participation, income generation, poverty alleviation, and affordable healthcare.
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