Dr Maryati Mohammed said Sabah has potential in developing such an industry in the near future " but if we don’t stop exploiting the jungle as we do now,one day we will find that there is nothing to shout about when we about herbal industry."

Dr Maryati ,head of Tropical Biology Research and Conservation Unit of University Malaysia Sabah,cited the rich biodiversity of Sabah’s forests.

One of the guest speakers at the seminar on ‘Developing the Herbal Industry in Sabah’ she cautioned this when approached for comments on the future outlook of the herbal industry in the state.

She particularly referred to the indiscriminate logging activities that are still taking place in the state.

" As one of the 12 hot spots of the world,our forests are under constant threat by various forms of exploitation.

Touching on the herbal farms she is confident that with commitment of the state Government as the driving force behind the upcoming industry,the state could have its first such farm within the next three years.

The most difficult stage in developing the industry is to get all the stakeholders in the state including the private sector,the NGOs and Government " to outline who should be doing what" in order to maximise the use of available resources.

" We ‘ ve seen too many people working with,for example the Tongkat Ali,when we could actually maximise our resources for other products.

She highlighted that the uniqueness and advantage of Sabah in this respect as compares to the other peninsula state is the relation between its diverse ethnic groups and their etnobotanical knowledge on medicinal plants found in the forests.

"we have more than 30 ethnic groups in Sabah and each of them has their own ways of using the herbal plants.

"therefore,if we could learn and document some of the methods,we would be rich in our knowledge on the application of herbal plants as compared to the other states," she said.

In this respect she conceded that an in-depth research is currently being carried out by a yayasan Sabah officer on the use of etnobotanical knowledge among the orang Sungai ( a riverine tribe) in the Lower Kinabatangan area.

She also felt that it is not too late for Sabah to start developing its herbal industry as it is rather a timely move where it could always exploit the abundance of research material from the past research work carried out by the others.

"We can start focusing on other new plant material that are abundantly found in our jungle," she said.

She admitted that as of now,there are still a lot of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) with high medicinal value in Sabah that are yet to be discovered,not to mention their cataloguing.

"Very few have been emphasised on the documented and plenty of them are still lying within the community itself," she said.

Maryati also emphasised on the crucial role of the various universities and research institution in the country to constantly examine and better understand the toxicity of medicines.

Only by doing his that they could convince the people the safety of consuming herbal medicines.

She noted that modern generation is rather skeptical about the application of herbal medicines,especially the anxiety aver its side effect,apart from regarding it as old fashion.

 Source: The New Sabah Times, 19 May 1999 , By Michael Teh