Identification and Conservation of Important Plant Areas - Plantlife

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Identification and Conservation of Important Plant Areas for Medicinal Plants in the HimalayaTibetan doctor (Amchi GurmetNamgyal) reading the pulse, Kanji,Ladakh, India. PHOTO ALAN HAMILTON.for forest reserves, the greatest progress in involving people seems to have been madein India and Nepal, both pioneers in joint forest management (JFM). So far, over 14,000forest patches have been handed over for community management in Nepal.Thesearrangements are based on agreements on the rights of local forest user groups tocollect produce from the forests under agreed terms. JFM in Nepal has mainly beenapplied to timber, only recently expanding to medicinal plants.3.3.3. Community-level instruments and processesAchievement of conservation of medicinal plants at the community level is the keyconservation challenge regarding Himalayan medicinal plants. Recognition of traditionallyprotected sites and landscapes, which are numerous in the Himalaya, is an importantaspect 50 .Apart from this, the main conservation instrument is sustainable use.Conservation at the community land is needed regardless of whether the medicinalplants are on private land, community land or in reserves (where agreements with theresponsible agencies are needed – see above).Agreements with industry may have thepotential to foster sustainable use (Section 3.3.5).Community-based conservation of medicinal plants requires the identification of localstakeholders, and also of areas of land sufficiently small in size to be capable of directmanagement, e.g. in terms of restricting use (as with sacred sites), regulating plantcollection, grazing and burning, and controlling unauthorised activities by outsiders(‘important plant resource areas’).The size of these management units is likely to varygreatly depending on the habitat.They will be much bigger in dry pastoral areas than onwell-watered, heavily populated land.32
Identification and Conservation of Important Plant Areas for Medicinal Plants in the HimalayaIn principle, these management areas should not be designated byscientists without community input.This is partly because the locals willgenerally know much more about their local botany than visitingscientists can discover. It is also because research has shown thatprofessional botanists and local people have different ways of prioritizingspecies for conservation and can come up with different lists 51 . It is alsonecessarily to take into consideration the opinions of different subsectorsof society (men, women; traditional doctors, commercialcollectors, etc.), each with its particular slant. Strategies for communitybasedconservation will only be successful if diverse perspectives areconsidered.Therefore, the identification of sites and species for specialattention should form a part of participatory planning withcommunities, rather than being independent scientific exercises 52 .Thesame is true for determining management arrangements.According toANSAB 21, 53, 54 , some key requirements for successful implementation ofsustainable use of wild medicinal plants include: (1) clear propertyrights; (2) resource management plans that consider all communityinterests; (3) biological monitoring and information on sustainable yields(not known for most species); and (4), ideally, access to value-added processes toincrease the incentives to communities.Community-based conservation of medicinal plants is possible wherever there is asufficient local interest in these resources – whether this is for healthcare, income orculture. Currently, many Himalayan communities remain interested in medicinal plantsand so there is a possibility of forming a ‘conservation grid’ across the Himalaya, foundedon community concern (a vision expressed in the National Report for India). Initiallybased on core sites, such a grid could subsequently be enlarged and strengthenedthrough the restoration of degraded intervening land. Based on thousands of Himalayanvillages, the grid would form a buffer for maintaining the diversity of the flora across thelandscape and for providing resilience against climatic change.Cleaning Neopicrorhiza scrophulariiflora(Pennell) Hong, Lomangthan Mustang,Central Nepal. PHOTO ARIANA WAGNER(ESON)3.3.4. Culturally related processesConservation of plant diversity has to be based on knowledge and motivation. Religiousbeliefs often play a major role 50, 55 .The Menri or Medicine Mountains, part of theHengduan Mountains of Yunnan (China), are viewed as a special repository for medicinalplants for Tibetan medicine.The highest peak, Khawa Karpo, is the second most sacredmountain for Tibetan Buddhism. It is circumambulated by thousands of pilgrims from allover Tibet each year 7 .There are numerous sacred sites on Mount Khawa Karpo, foundbetween 1900 and 4000 m.At higher elevations (4000 m) the whole area is considered asacred landscape 50 .A statistically based study on Mount Khawa Karpo has found thatuseful species and endemic species of plants are significantly more numerous at sacredsites than elsewhere; also, that sacred sites are significantly close to villages.The highelevation parts of the mountain (the sacred landscape) are significantly richer in endemicplant species than lower altitudes.There is no surer foundation for conservation of medicinal plants in the Himalaya thanthat provided by the exceptional knowledge and social standing of traditional doctors.Herbal doctors – the botanists of the Himalaya – have traditionally been concerned thatthey collect medicinal plants in sustainable ways 15, 18 . Herbal doctors can be active forplant conservation on many scales, sometimes cross-cutting communities and states.33
Page 1 and 2: IDENTIFICATION AND CONSERVATIONOF I
Page 3 and 4: Prelims and AcknowledgementsWritten
Page 5 and 6: Identification and Conservation of
Page 35: Identification and Conservation of

Identification and Conservation of Important Plant Areas - Plantlife

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?