Conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants: problems, progress, and prospects.

Shi-Lin Chen,André Steinmetz,Qiong Wu,Chun-Fang Li,Hua Yu,Hong-Mei Luo

doi:10.1186/s13020-016-0108-7

Abstract

Medicinal plants are globally valuable sources of herbal products, and they are disappearing at a high speed. This article reviews global trends, developments and prospects for the strategies and methodologies concerning the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plant resources to provide a reliable reference for the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants. We emphasized that both conservation strategies (e.g. in situ and ex situ conservation and cultivation practices) and resource management (e.g. good agricultural practices and sustainable use solutions) should be adequately taken into account for the sustainable use of medicinal plant resources. We recommend that biotechnical approaches (e.g. tissue culture, micropropagation, synthetic seed technology, and molecular marker-based approaches) should be applied to improve yield and modify the potency of medicinal plants.

Highlights

Medicinal plants are globally valuable sources of new drugs [1,2,3,4]
Up to 80 % of people in developing countries are totally dependent on herbal drugs for their primary healthcare, and over 25 % of prescribed medicines in developed countries are derived from wild plant species [4]
A highly conservative estimate states that the current loss of plant species is between 100 and 1000 times higher than the expected natural extinction rate and that the Earth is losing at least one potential major drug every 2 years [7]

Summary

Introduction

Medicinal plants are globally valuable sources of new drugs [1,2,3,4]. There are over 1300 medicinal plants used in Europe, of which 90 % are harvested from wild resources; in the United States, about 118 of the top 150 prescription drugs are based on natural sources [5]. For medicinal plants with increasingly limited supplies, sustainable use of wild resources can be an effective conservation alternative.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion