Conservation deals with the study of natural resources and their management for sustainable use and their perpetual existence in their natural habitat. Natural resources should be protected in such a way that species should be protected from endangerment in their natural habitat. It leads to the understanding and documentation of plants diversity, conserving plant diversity and their sustainable use. Conservation of medicinal plants is an act of careful preservation and protection of natural resources or habitats of medicinal plants especially through planned management. National Medicinal Plant Boards (NMPB) is engaging in various conservation activities by developing sustainable way through central sector scheme on Conservation, Development and Sustainable Management of Medicinal Plants.
- In-Situ Conservation
In-situ conservation deals with the on-site conservation of the wild genetic resources/genetic diversity in natural habitat. In India, the conservation of forest areas preserve through Protected Areas like National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries and Biosphere Reserves.
Promotions of In-situ conservation of Medicinal Plants is also important to the AYUSH due to its dependants on Medicinal Plants. It involves survey, inventorisation and documentation of important medicinal plants in their natural habitat. In-situ conservation of medicinal plants is carried out through following activities:
- Medicinal Plants Conservation and Development Area's (MPCDA's)
- In-situ Resource Augmentation
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- Ex-Situ Conservation
Ex-situ conservation dealing with the off-site conservation of the wild genetic resources/ genetic diversity in natural habitat. It includes the collection, preservation and maintenance of selected genetic resources from wild.
Ex-situ conservation of medicinal plants is a complementary action to conserve the genetic diversity, thereby reducing pressure on wild habitats and augmenting raw material availability. For many species of medicinal plants their wild population is on critical level and it is not suitable for dealing in-situ conservation action. It can be serve as field gene banks and also help to engaging the number of stakeholders in production and regeneration of medicinal plants.
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- Support to JFMC's / BMCs / Van Panchayats
Joint Forest Management Committees (JFMC's)Panchayats/Van Panchayats/SHGs/BMCs are also supported for setting of local cluster for value addition, drying, warehousing and augmenting marketing infrastructure, etc.
Joint Forest Management deals with sustainable forest management through community participation. It is a mutual management system by involving forest dwellers and forest department to improve their livelihood and reducing the dependency on forest which ultimately leads sustainable way to protect forest areas.
Largest share of the world population, about 80%, rely on traditional medicines for their primary health care needs which are herbal and healer based. Beside this, viewing the harmful effects of synthetic chemicals, the inclination toward the herbal remedy is also increasing worldwide. In order to meet the increasing demand of quality medicinal plant material for trade and drug formulations both in domestic as well as international market, National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) issupporting Research & Development activity on various aspects of medicinal plants. In this regards the NMPB provides project based financial assistance to various research organization/ institutions for Research & Development on medicinal plants.
- Traceability of raw drugs.
- Germination and seed treatment protocols.
- Population assessments and conservation biology.
- Collection, documentation, validation, remote Seattleite imaging, compilation etc. for preparation of comprehensive monographs..
- Bio-activity Guided Fractionation.
- Development of DNA barcoding, Spectrometry HPLC methods etc. for setting up Botanical Reference Standards.
- Establishment of quality standards.
- Ethno-medicinal exploration, documentation and its digitization.
- Package & practices.
- Identification of substitutes for traded species for inclusion in Pharmacopoeia.
- Identification of elite molecules and Bio-prospecting.
- Studies/Documentation on impact of global warming, various policies and regulatory regimes effecting stake- holders.
- Marketing, Econometrics, Agro technology and establishment of repositories/gene bank etc.
- Fellowship support for acquiring M.phil / Ph.D / Post-Doctoral Degrees in the field of medicinal plants.
NMPB involve in Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities for disseminating the traditional knowledge among the masses with the objective of spreading awareness about Medicinal Plants. Such activities are being taken up by NMPB for development of Medicinal Plants sector in India. NMPB provides the financial assistance to IEC activities as per operational guidelines mentioned in Central Sector Scheme of NMPB.
Awareness Building, Exposure Visits, Education and Capacity Building of Stakeholders through Information Education and Communication (IEC) strategy:
Medicinal plant sector involves an array of stakeholders varying from resource managers, cultivators, gatherers, supply chain intermediaries, traders, local healers, researchers to manufactures and exporters. It is necessary to disseminate information on different aspects of medicinal plants like harvesting from wild, cultivation technologies, manufacturing, proper handling of raw material, trade etc among various target groups about the importance of development and management through an appropriate outreach strategy, Capacity building, appropriate recognition, incentivisation etc.
Activities
- Publicity through regular participation in Exhibitions/Fairs
- Aushadi Vanaspati Mitra Program (AVM)
- Organizing Workshops/Seminars/Conferences/Arogya Fair etc
- Setting up of Facilitation Centres
- Medicinal Plant Species specific/ Campaigns
- Systematic use of Multimedia and other appropriate communication tools
- Publication of Periodicals/Magazines and Newsletters
- Training and Capacity Building initiatives
NMPB intend to establish herbal garden of various types to popularize the usefulness of commonly available and frequently used Medicinal Plants among the various stakeholders and sensitize the public about our traditional knowledge. It is also a way of conserving Rare, Endangered and Threatened (RET) species of Medicinal Plants. Following kind of Herbal Gardens are promoted under the scheme to create awareness about traditional usage of medicinal plants.
Type of Herbal Garden:
- Home Herbal Gardens
- School Herbal Gardens
- Institutional/ Public Herbal Gardens
- Herbal Gardens of State and National Importance
Eligibility:
- Government Organizations, Universities, Research Institutes, Government Aided Colleges and Schools
- Computerised database of medicinal plants and monographs
- Non-government Organizations (NGOs), Public Sector Undertakings, Federations, Co-operatives, and Societies including Housing Societies etc.
India's domestic herbal industry is represented by 8610 licensed herbal units, thousands of cottage level unregulated herbal units and millions of folk healers and household level users of thousands of herbal raw drugs on one hand and a complex trade web on the other that channels the herbal raw drugs from various supply sources to the end users. Thus, to understand the Marketing and trade of the sector, a focus on Demand and Supply of medicinal plants is very important. The canvas portraying demand and supply of medicinal plants in the country is itself very complex.
Currently Marketing of Medicinal Plant produce happens through Mandis and other wholesale markets. There are numerous intermediaries. Trade is rather opaque and information on prices, arrivals and other trends are not easily accessible to farmers/growers. NMPB has been initiating many steps in order to fill this gap.
The commercialization of the production of classical ASU formulations requiring large quantities of wild harvested, cultivated or imported herbal raw drugs has witnessed the emergence of a thriving raw drug trade. It has become necessary to know the annual consumption levels of the herbal raw drugs and the trends of their use to effectively manage the resource for ensuring sustainable supplies to the herbal industry, folk users and growing global markets. NMPB has been from time to time commissioning studies to understand annual trade levels of medicinal plants.
- Schemes/Proposals
- Market Price of Medicinal Plants
- Demand and Supply Position of Medicinal Plants
- Online Submission of Schedule TA
- Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani (ASU) Drugs Manufactures /Medicinal Plants Trader
- Ongoing & Completed Project/ Studies
- e-Charak: Online Market Place of Medicinal Plants