Medicinal plants

This report reviews European trade and documents the results of in-depth studies in eight countries: Albania, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Turkey and the UK. It identifies 150 species that could be at risk in one or several countries from over-collection in the wild and provides a range of recommendations to assist in the conservation of these species

Books and papers on medicinal plants number tens of thousands worldwide. The bulk of them relate to pharmacology and medicinal properties or to classical ethnobotanical research. Regrettably, information on distribution, life history, biology, population status, levels of extraction and trade, or resource management of the taxa is scarce. Information urgently needed for setting plant conservation priorities is rare and scattered.

Based on information derived from literature, statistics, interviews and a field survey in Bolivia, this report explores the value of non-timber forest products not only in economic terms but also as an important element in the lives of people who live in or near the forest. Covers values at local, national and international level; intellectual property rights; ecotourism; and sustainability of exploitation with detailed examples.

Eighty per cent of the world's population depends on traditional medicine for its primary health care needs, a system of medicine in which most of the drugs and cures used come from plants. Yet many of the plant involved are increasingly threatened. These Guidelines outline in clear steps the tasks that need to be done to conserve them. Of interest primarily to nature conservationists and health policy-makers, but also to ethnobiologists, ecologists, agronomists and pharmocologists.