Sustainable Herbology: A Must for the Future of Health Care
Herbal remedies made from medicinal plants have become an increasingly popular option for health conscious Americans. This is not, however, a sustainable form of medicine without new protocols that protect the viability of these important herbs and plants—and the environment in which they grow.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 80 percent of the world’s population relies solely or largely on traditional remedies for health care. These numbers do not exclusively apply to “developing” nations. In the U.S. alone, over 56,000 tons of medicinal and aromatic plant material was imported and exported from 1991-1998. The current demand for herbal medicine is placing considerable strain on the herbal plants and the ecosystems within which they live. In 2002, the Food and Drug Organization of the United Nations (FAO) declared sustainable harvesting as the most important conservation strategy to ensure future long-term access to most wild-harvested species, and to maintain healthy ecosystems.
Although FAO has determined the need for a sustainable protocol, its adoption as an industry standard is overdue because of economic and political reasons.. The FAO determined the three major causes for delaying a comprehensive protocol for cultivating herbal remedies are: 1) poor knowledge about sustainable harvest rates and practices; 2) undefined land use rights; and, 3) lack of legislative and policy guidelines.
The lack of information refers to a lack of knowledge among resource managers regarding the distribution of plants, the genetic diversity of wild populations, and the annual sustained yield that can be harvested without damaging the population. As each plant has a unique ecological, cultural, and economic association – resource managers may be overwhelmed with the amount of information needed to ensure sustainability. The FAO also identified that without an effective management system to track annual harvest quotas, seasonal or geographic restrictions, and restrictions of harvest on particular plant parts -- the demand for herbal remedies will negatively impact the ecosystem and thus sacrifice the future of herbal medicine as a viable health care option.
The FAO also advocates for privatization of herbal resource areas, defining the current “open access” system within traditional societies as a systematic invitation for the mass-cultivation of herbs since competition within a certain resource area is heightened. Opponents of privatization suggest that this would control and limit who has access to a resource that may have been used ceremonially, medicinally, or as edibles for centuries. The privatization of harvestable areas would also determine who is able to profit from the traditional medicine market. This, although possibly ecologically sustainable, does not meet the needs of those who utilize plants for medicinal purposes.
The final obstacle in implementing a universal sustainable herb cultivation protocol, as declared by the FAO, is the lack of legislative and policy support for wild harvesting schemes. This refers to how national legislation and policies mostly fail to provide frameworks for rational and sustainable use of wild resources. Although mostly referring to “developing” nations, where traditional medicines are the primary health care, unsustainable plant cultivation has a global impact, which limits access to the resource and destroys the land for future harvests.
The Teleosis Green Health Care Program advocates for Sustainable Herbology as a critical process in health care. The integration of sustainable herb cultivation represents an Ecologically Sustainable Medical practice that is good for people and the environment.
To read, Impact of Cultivation and Gathering of Medicinal Plants on Biodiversity: Global Trends and Issues,
visit www.fao.org.
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To learn more about Providing Sustainable Medical Care, contact Teleosis and ask about the Green Health Care Program at 510-558-7285, or Bonita Ford at
bonita@teleosis.org
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