Medicinal Plants Classification Biosynthesis and ... - Index of

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Gustavo J. Martínez, Mara Sato and Marta Ojeda
III. Extraction, Use, Comercialization and Conservation of Medicinal Plants
[3] Medicinal plants not only have an important role in traditional health systems, but also
in international herb and pharmaceutical markets. With the increased demand for
natural phytotherapeutics and pharmaceuticals, the local cultures and biological
resources have become increasingly susceptible to the pressure of market economies. In
some cases, the ability to provision is becoming critical, as evidenced by the increasing
distances the natives have to travel to collect their medicines and the documentation of
over-exploited commercial species (Martínez, 2005a).
Although one-fourth of the 250,000 medicinal species currently known are found in
Latin–America (Elisabetsky & Costa-Campos 1996), there is scarce information concerning
endangered species for the region (Lucas & Synge 1978; Davies et al. 1986). A partial list of
endangered and threatened plants for Argentina can be found in De la Sota (1977), Cabrera
(1977), Noher de Halac et al. (1986), Delucchi & Correa (1992), and Vischi et al. (2004), but
the records about medicinal flora is scarce. In the province of Córdoba, the available
information on harvesting and commercializing medicinal plants comes mainly from
Traslasierras (to the west of Córdoba) (Lagrotteria et al., 1986, 1987a,b; Rodríguez et al.,
1992; Lagrotteria & Affolter, 1999), a region from which great volumes of medicinal plants
are collected, extracted, stored and commercialized. Although of much lesser importance, the
collection and commercialization in the Department of Santa María (southwest Córdoba)
involves 64 medicinal species, many of which are wild native plants growing in the area
(Martínez, 2005a). In order to estimate the impact of these practices, we developed a
quantitative method for evaluating the conservation priorities of species used in popular
medicine (Martínez et al., 2006). In this study, qualitative attributes were surveyed by the
knowledge and perception of local communities and we ranked the species according to their
index of conservation priority (ICP), which considers the following data: harvest, perceived
abundance, propagation method, origin and commercial demand of the species in the area.
Following these criteria and others proposed by authors of similar studies for different
regions of the province of Córdoba, Table 4 and Figure 7 shows a list of medicinal species
prioritized in terms of conservation. The prominent pressure of extraction, non-sustainable
harvest and commercialization practices, restriction of its distribution (endemism and/or
species with restricted distributions), or the combination of all these factors, together with the
absence of a legal framework and other environmental problems like habitat degradation,
leads to a loss of genes threatening the continuity of some of the native medicinal species of
our hills.
Seeking the sustainable use and management of medicinal flora, the Chiang Mai
declaration (WHO-UICN-WWF, 1993) indicates that, among the conservation strategies the
propagation of wild autochthonous plants in cultivation systems requires studies on the
variability, germination and propagation of these species, among other aspects.