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'Medicinal herbs need to be conserved'

          New Delhi: India needs to conserve and its medicinal herbal wealth. Inaugurating a orientation and capacity building workshop for CEOs of State Medicinal Plant Boards on "Strategies for Conservation and Cultivation of Medicinal Plants" here on Wednesday, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Panabaka Lakshmi said: "The growing demand for herbal products globally is putting unsustainable demand on forests leading to depletion of the plants biodiversity threatening the very survival of a number of medicinal plants species". "Our strategies and action plans should focus not only on conserving and enriching the existing medicinal plants bio-diversity in the forest areas but promote cultivation of medicinal plants through farmers," she added. The two-day workshop has been organised by the National Medicinal Plants Board in collaboration with Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT).Forests are the main repository of our rich biodiversity and contribute to more than 90 per cent of the medicinal plants used for manufacture of medicines of the Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha systems.
- April 18, 2007