Medicinal and aromatic plants

Issue

In recent years, the use of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) has increased greatly in western countries, but also in places such as India and China. In Europe, at least 2,000 MAP species are traded commercially, 1,200 to 1,300 of these being native to Europe.

The increase in demand for MAPs is putting pressure on natural resources. The European Plant Conservation Strategy (EPCS) states that 90% of MAP species native to Europe are still collected from the wild.

Definition

"Medicinal plants are plants that provide people with medicines - to prevent disease, maintain health or cure ailments. In one form or another, they benefit virtually everyone on Earth. No exact definition of an MP is possible. There are related issues, such as for nutrition, toiletry, bodily care, incense and ritual healing."

"Aromatic plants are used for their aroma and flavour."

(Temporary definition, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Working Group – ECP/GR)

Importance

The use of plants for medicines is by far the biggest use of plants in term of the number of species specifically targeted. Plants provide the predominant ingredients of medicines in most traditional systems of healing and have been the source of inspiration for several major pharmaceutical drugs.

According to Plantlife International, the scale of trade in MAPs ranges from local to international. Much of this trade is unrecorded or poorly documented in official statistics. Due to the poor documentation, decision makers usually have little awareness of the significance of trade and consumption of medicinal plants, or of the problems of unsustainability and the sometimes deleterious impacts on natural habitats of wild collection.

According to the International Standard for the Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP), the main threats for the MAP populations are over-harvesting and habitat loss, including through land conversion.

MAPs in the European Plant Conservation Strategy

Target 3.1

"Best practice for the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants (and other sociologically important plants) identified and promoted to relevant policy makers."

Lead organisation WWF and Traffic

MAPs in the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation

Target 3

"Development of models with protocols for plant conservation and sustainable use, based on research and practical experience."

No lead organisation (cross cutting)

Developments

An exciting development for the conservation of MAP species in Europe is the International Standard for the Sustainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP). It aims to provide an international benchmark for sustainable use of this category of biological diversity. The ISSC-MAP is being developed by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN, a Planta Europa member), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Germany), TRAFFIC Germany, and the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group (MPSG) of IUCN.

Also other projects are being carried out for the conservation of MAP species:

• MAP in the Balkans, by WWF Germany and TRAFFIC Europe. The local population collects most species in the wild, especially for trade. But over-harvesting has depleted wild populations of many MAP species in the area where they were abundant only 10-15 years ago.
  
• WWF has developed a series of fact sheets on a few species and major conservation issues relating to MAP. The former provide information on the species such as geographical distribution and habitat, its uses, a conservation assessment and conservation recommendations.
  
• TRAFFIC has a published series of recommendations for the conservation of MAP species.
  
• Plantlife International is currently supporting several projects concerned with community-based approached to conservation of medicinal plants. The objectives of these projects are to build local capacity for the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants and also to provide case studies for the identification of best practice. See the Plantlife International website for an overview on the projects carried out.

The list of projects may be incomplete. If you are aware of additional activities and projects on medicinal plants that have been carried out anywhere in Europe, please contact the Planta Europa Secretariat, providing a one to three sentence summary and a website link where available, so that these activities can be added to the list above.

Action required

Further development of the existing projects for the conservation of medicinal plants is necessary. Several issues have consistently been raised in the various sets of recommendations compiled to promote the conservation of medicinal plants. These include:

• The need for a coordinated conservation action based on both "in situ" and "ex situ" strategies.
  
• The inclusion of community and gender perspectives in the development of policies and programmes.
  
• The development of sustainable harvesting practices.
  
• The need for more information on the medicinal plant trade - establishing systems for inventorying and monitoring the status of stocks of medicinal plants.
  
• Encouraging micro-enterprise development based on sustainable resource use by indigenous and rural communities.
  
• Protection of traditional resources and the intellectual property rights.