Medicinal plants are one of the best gifts of nature we are still having since antiquity. It safeguards our physical, mental, emotional and cognitive wellness surpassing the wonders of all human inventions in chemical and synthetic drugs.
But it is equally importantant that how we are going to nurture this natural resources everyday, every moment, in all walks of life. What should be our return gift to nature herself, in turn?
Often we praise and speak highly of medicinal plants for their magical unique inner qualities in the form of various secondary metabolites, but shouldn't they demand a little more care and sensible behaviour from our end?
These questions are relevant today and confronting us, the common men, the researchers, the medical practitioners, the social scientists and the policymakers as well. What is your insight, remarks or advice in this regard?
Yes, I completely agree. Several of the medicinal plants are threatened due to over-exploitation, habitat loss, over-grazing and illegal trade.
https://www.iucn.org/content/india%E2%80%99s-wild-medicinal-plants-threatened-over-exploitation
Article Critically Endangered Indian Medicinal Plants
Book Threatened (Medicinal) Plants of Andhra Pradesh
Article Status of threatened medicinal plants of Jhabua district, Ma...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275894246_Status_of_threatened_medicinal_plants_of_Jhabua_district_Madhya_PradeshIndia
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257985522_Himalayan_Threatened_Medicinal_plants_and_Their_Conservation_in_Himachal_Pradesh
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9e04/7fc17da3f6d96a68560170875a7f5230a07a.pdf
http://oaji.net/articles/2014/1378-1419318230.pdf
In India, the naturally grown medicinal plants are marketed many times. Some medicinal plants are rarely found now and some are almost extinct due to that reason.
As most of the medicinal plants are gift of God to India and some countries of the torrid zone of the globe, the Western medicine business community has no feeling for such extinct. Instead, they have perhaps reverse action.
On the other hand, we are also performing copy- paste research of the West and not even thinking to do something different from the western concepts.
The actual research on cultivation and use of medicinal plants in India is at its infency.
The main problem faced in that aspect is the variation of bioactive principles among the same plant grown in different areas/ seasons etc.
Such subjects are not considered as some topic of thorough research still now!
It's a bit of a complex question. I like to refer to the facts, but it doesn't stop me from having faith.
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