Abstract
Indiscriminate extraction of Picrorhiza kurrooa is a serious threat to the population of this Himalayan medicinal plant. Over 90% of the market demand for this species is met from the wild. We conducted a study on the patterns and processes of kutki extraction in a part of the Dhauladhar range, Western Himalaya, in the state of Himachal Pradesh (India). Semistructured interviews and participant observations with the medicinal plant collectors (n 5 85) were used to assess current trends of medicinal plant extraction. It was revealed that the collectors camp at altitudes . 3500 m and collect medicinal plants over a period of 5 months. Individually they collect 5.2 6 0.37 kg (fresh weight) of kutki/ day. To get 1 kg dry weight of the plant, as many as 300–400 individual plants are uprooted. Further, the initial processing of the material is done in the wild; ca. 1 MT of fuelwood, comprising sensitive tree line species, is burnt to dry the same amount of collected material. This is a threat not only to the survival of the plant itself, but also to that of the sensitive tree line species. The study reveals that the extraction of kutki is unselective and unmanaged, which may be a threat for its regeneration and survival. We recommend spatiotemporal regulation of kutki extraction so as to ensure its conservation. The integrated approach of taking into confidence the local people in the present study has helped in generating a reliable picture of the patterns and processes of kutki extraction. The same may be replicated in other mountain areas for other heavily extracted species.
Highlights
IntroductionPicrorhiza kurrooa (family Scrophulariaceae; trade name kutki), a perennial herb confined to alpine zones of the Himalaya, is in very high demand in the herbal market (Dutt 1928; Ved and Goraya 2008)
Introduction and trade valuePicrorhiza kurrooa, a perennial herb confined to alpine zones of the Himalaya, is in very high demand in the herbal market (Dutt 1928; Ved and Goraya 2008)
All 85 respondents revealed that medicinal plant collection was for their own use (99%) until the 1970s but is primarily for commercial purposes (97.5%), with only a small fraction of medicinal plants (2.5%) collected for collectors’ own use
Summary
Picrorhiza kurrooa (family Scrophulariaceae; trade name kutki), a perennial herb confined to alpine zones of the Himalaya, is in very high demand in the herbal market (Dutt 1928; Ved and Goraya 2008). The species is one of the top 15 plant species traded in India in terms of the economic value of traded materials (Malaisamy and Ravindran 2003; Ved and Goraya 2008). With an annual growth rate of 20% in herbal medicines in recent years, demand for medicinal plants has increased by 11.1% (Subrat 2002). Global estimates of the kutki trade (Olsen and Helles 1997; Olsen 1998; Larsen 2002) suggest that the price of this species is higher than for most products from lower altitudes. The annual supply of kutki from Nepal, India, and Bhutan has been estimated as 375 MT (Olsen 2001)
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