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Trade Monitoring Group Turns Attention to Plant "Tigers"

May 6th, 1998

New Delhi, India - The "Tigers" of the plant kingdom are now high on the agenda of the world's largest wildlife trade monitoring group, which concluded its annual meeting Monday in India's Corbett National Park.

"While many people think only or Tiger bone or rhinoceros horn when they think of unsustainable wildlife trade, there may be many 'Tigers' and 'rhinos' in the medicinal plant kingdom," said Steven Broad, Executive Director of the TRAFFIC Network, the wildlife-trade monitoring programme of WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature and IUCN-The World Conservation Union.

"Many of the world's people depend on these medicinal plants for their health dare, and in some cases the trade may already be threatening plant populations," Broad said.

This issue is particularly important in India and other countries where people rely heavily on herbal medicines. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 80 per cent of the world's population relies on medicinal plants and animals for their primary health care needs. The demand for medicinals is also rising in the industrialised world, where natural health remedies are becoming increasingly popular.

In India, Ayurvedic medicine commonly utilises about 500 medicinal plant species, such as the Himlayan plants Jatamansi and Kutki. The dried roots of Jatamansi are widely traded and used to treat certain types of fits, convulsions and heart palpitations.

Monitoring and assessing the medicinal trade in plants and animals has long been one of the TRAFFIC Network's top priorities. To date, however, the Network has focused much of its efforts on monitoring the trade in some of the most endangered and high-profile animal species, such as Tigers and rhinos. These species will remain a focus, but the Network agreed to also turn its expertise to lesser known aspects of trade and particularly medicinal plants.

The TRAFFIC Network plans a series of medicinal plant projects to assess the impact of this trade on both  wild plant populations and local health care systems. In India, this work will include a comprehensive review of Ayuerdevic and Tibetan medicine systems. Other projects will include research and action to assist in the conservation of plant resources used in traditional medicine in East Asia and to support effective management of trade in South America's medicinal plants.

In Europe, one of the world's biggest consumers of medicinal and aromatic plants and plant parts, TRAFFIC will host the first international symposium on the conservation of medicinal plants in the region in June. The symposium will present the results of extensive research into this trade throughout Europe. In-depth research is also under way or planned in other regions, such as East and Southern Africa and North America.

More than 30 representatives from TRAFFIC India and 17 of the Network's other offices around the globe attended the six-day meeting, 29 April - 4 May.

For more information, please contact your local TRAFFIC office or TRAFFIC International.
Tel (44) 1223 277427;
Fax (44) 1223 277237