Plants for life: - Sacred Seeds Sanctuary

• About 20,000 tons of medicinal andaromatic plants worth US$18-20 millionare traded every year in Nepal alone,and about 90% are harvested inuncontrolled fashion by landless,resource-poor mountain farmers forwhom the harvest and trade inmedicinal plants constitutes their onlyform of cash income. The situation issimilar in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,and other countries of South Asia(MAPPA, 2007).• In Namibia, there are an estimated5,000 to 10,000 Devil’s Claw(Harpagophytum spp.) harvesters,50 to 100 middlemen and 17 Namibianexporters. The retail value in 2001 wassome US$40 million, though Namibiacaptures at most 5% of the retail valueof the trade (Cole and Stewart, 2006).• Ethnoveterinary medicine is used bylivestock raisers throughout the worldto keep their animals healthy andproductive, since modern treatmentsmay be expensive and inaccessible inremote areas (Mathias, 2001).Rows of ginseng and mushroom elixirs for sale in Seoul, Korea.Aconitum spp.Aconitum heterophyllum (Patris) isendemic to the alpine and sub-alpinezones of the north-west Himalayas.It grows only in localised restrictedecological niches and is said to neitherinvade new areas nor survive at loweraltitudes (Beigh et al, 2005).The species has;1 name in Arabic, 5 in Hindi, 2 inKannada, 1 in Malayalam, 2 in Marathi,3 in Persian, 70 in Sanskrit, 83 in Tamil,3 in Telugu, 5 in Tibetan and 4 in Urdu(FRLHT, no date).The dried root is commonly used totreat gastric disorders and high fevers,as a substitute for quinine and to treattoothache and scorpion or snake bites.It is a high value species; gatherers canexpect to receive around Rs 1500/kg(approximately US$37) (Uniyal et al,2006). Traditionally, it was harvestedevery two to three years. It is nowharvested every year and subject to alengthened harvesting season, placingthe species under heavy pressure(Singh, 2006). The species shows poorseed germination and low seed survivaltherefore regeneration is low undernatural conditions. This characteristic,combined with non-judiciousexploitation, over-grazing and habitatdestruction mean that the species isnow hard to find and criticallyendangered.Aconitum heterophyllum is recorded incultivation in only 4 botanic gardens(PlantSearch database). BGCI willtherefore support the ex situconservation of this species by alertinggardens to the conservation needs ofthe species, gathering species-specificdata and facilitating knowledge sharebetween gardens.The world’s greatest concentration ofmedicinal plant wealth is found in tropicaldeveloping countries that are beset byacute poverty. In these regions, the lossof biodiversity and land degradation isaccelerating as poverty is increasing.The loss of livelihood is a very real concerngiven that approximately 1 billion people, afifth of the world’s population, live on lessthan US$1 a day (World Bank, 2007).A common definition is that a livelihood isthe financial means whereby one lives; forexample, collecting wild medicinal plantsfor sale. However, this does notnecessarily mean that the plantscollected are sufficient to satisfy anindividual’s needs or to lift them out ofpoverty. Such a livelihood cannottherefore be sustainable. A sustainablelivelihood is one that can cope with andrecover from stresses and shocks whilstmaintaining or enhancing its capabilitiesfor the future and not undermining thenatural resource base (Kazoora, 2002).Sustainable use meets the needs of thepresent without compromising the abilityof future generations to meet their ownneeds (Brundtland, 1987).Plants for life: Medicinal plant conservation and botanic gardens 9