Non-wood forest products: a look at medicinal plants

People have innumerable uses for the many plant and animal resources found in the forests. Although several species have been domesticated and integrated into agricultural production schemes over the countries, others referred to as non-wood forest products (NWFPs), continue to be gathered from the wild sources. In many part of the world, NWFPs provide food (bushmeat, mushroom, fruits, nuts, animal fodder), construction materials, fibers (bamboo, rattan, palm leaves), medicines and other health care products, and goods for religious or spiritual significance. While the bulk of these are gathered from household use or for sale in local markets, some enter national and international trade in significant quantities. The large number of suppliers often characterizes production of NWFPs, each with a small-scale operation and a lack of industrial development. A global overview of major NWFPs, summarizing known information about the status of production, value, trade and factors affecting their development, was provided in the FAO publication State of the World'’ Forests 1997.

Various issues related to NWFPs are currently being discussed in regional and international fora. One relates to ensuring the conservation of forest-based biological diversity while still ensuring equitable access to forest resources (including NWFPs), particularly by local people. Developing appropriate and fair pricing methodologies for NWFPs (including royalties on intellectual property rights) is another need. Difficult access and/or insecure tenure rights to the recourses, and the absence of relevant market information including fair market access, are among the key constraints faced by the sub-sector.

Medicinal plants are among the most valuable of the NWFPs. Most, although not all, medicinal plants gathered from the wild come from the wild come from forestland. Their high value can provide and additional incentive for sustainable management of forest recourses and for the conservation of specific habitats.

Use of medicinal plants. More than 10,000 plant species (of both forest and non-forest origin) are used for medicinal purposes, mainly as traditional medicines. The World Health Organization has estimated that 80 percent of the population of the developing countries rely on traditional medicines, which are mostly plant-derived, for primary health care. Use is by no means restricted to developing countries and traditional medicines, however; at least 25 percent of drugs used in modern pharmacopoeia are derived from plants. Many other synthetic analogues built on prototype compounds isolated from plants. Demand for medicinal plants is increasing in both developing and developed countries.

Collection/production of medicinal plants. The large majority of plant material used for medicinal purposes comes from developing countries. Most of this gathered from the wild mainly form forests, for household use. Few medicinal species are cultivated, because the low price of material harvested from the wild still makes cultivation financially unattractive. More of these species are expected to be cultivated in the future, however, because sources of wild material are diminishing and cultivated material is far preferable to wild material for large-scale production of commercial drugs for reason of efficiency and quality control. Standardization, whether for pure products, extracts or crude drugs, is critical, and will become increasingly so as quality requirements continue to become more stringent throughout the world.

Wild sources of medicinal plants will be important, at least over the short term, and will remain so for much longer in developing areas of the world and for the poorer sectors of society. In addition, some species will be difficult to cultivate or synthesis of their active ingredient will be problematic, It is therefore critical to ensure the combination of cultivation and /or sustainable wild harvesting of medicinal plants. Only the latter can serve, through sound management of these recourses, to provide additional incentives to conserve the actual habitats with the broadest genetic variation.

Not only are millions of people dependent on these plants for home health care, but harvesting medicinal plant material for commercial purposes may be one of the few opportunities for paid employment or for earning supplementary income in some remote rural areas. When a species becomes commercially interesting, however, control over the resource may be transfer to a concessionaire system (individual company or through a kind of "extractive reserve" community scheme) or a trading board, often depriving some local people access to the resource, either for household use or as a source of income.

Policy and regulation of trade in medicinal plants. Most end user is unaware of the extent to which the expanding demand in medicinal plants is threatening the survival of several plant species. The prices paid to gathers tend to be very low, and resources are frequently open-access or common properly. As a result, commercial plant gathers often "mine" the recourses rather than managing them. The species most vulnerable to extinction are those, which are in high demand, are slow reproducers and have specific habitat requirements and a limited distribution (e.g. Warburgia salutaris in eastern and southern Africa). There is also a clear relationship between the part of the plant collected, or the collection method used, and the impact of harvesting on the plant. For example, heavy exploitation of the bark of Prunus africana, has devastated population of this three throughout humid America.

Most countries have few or no regulation controlling the collection of material from the wild. Even where there is national legislation controlling harvesting and trade of medicinal plants, it may be insufficient or ineffective. In Bhutan, laws passed to ban the collection of specific plants effectively increased their price and stimulated illegal harvesting, which virtually drove them to extinction locally. The introduction of harvesting restrictions or ban in one country can result in over harvesting in other exporting countries.

Most medicinal plants are traded in local or national markets; relatively few are traded internationally in significant volumes. There are few reliable global and even national data on production and trade of wild-harvested medicinal plants, and it is difficult to distinguish wild from cultivated sources in existing trade statistics on medicinal plant material. According to the data compiled from the COMTRADE database of the UN conference on trade and Development (UNCTAD), the total value of medicinal plants exports in 1995 from approximately 100 countries amounted to US$880 million. Regionally, Asia leads in the supply and consumption of medicinal plants, followed by North America. Germany dominates the European trade in medicinal plants, importing plant material from over 100 countries and re-exporting one-third of its as finished products.

The main from of monitoring and regulation of international trade in certain medicinal plants is through the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Several national and international initiatives by governmental organizations are emerging to address unsustainable rates of exploitation of many medicinal plant species. At the global level, among the most significant are the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group of IUCN and Trade Records and Analysis of Flora and Fauna in Commerce (TRAFFIC), a wildlife trade monitoring programme of WWF and IUCN, which cooperates closely within CITES secretariat. For example, TRAFFIC has recently launched a priority programme on Medicinal Wildlife Trade. The objective for the 1997-2000 period are; to identify and predict possible threats posed to wild species by the medicinal trade and to indicate possible solution; to examine existing local, national and international regulatory measures for wildlife medicinal and seek modifications as required to provide maintaining trade within sustainable levels; and to promote enforcement of and adherence to regulatory measures to intended to conserve wild species in trade.

Clearly, achieving sustainable management of NWFPs, in general and medicinal plants, in particular, will be continuing challenge requiring concerted local, national and international action (Source: State of the World’s Forest [SOFO] 1999.) [See under News and Notes for more information on SOFO 1999, and under International Action for more information on TRAFFIC.].

Source: Non-wood News, No. 6, March 1999