CONTENTS:- Section 1. Taxonomical classification of medicinal plants. Section 2. Traditional knowledge and sustainable use of biodiversity. Section 3. Intellectual property rights and biopiracy. Section 4. Mainstreaming medicinal plants in primary health care. Section 5. Value addition and processing. Section 6. Screening of bioactive ingredients.
DESCRIPTION
The Third World Countries of the world not only accommodate most of the world's biodiversity but also wide varieties of medicinal plants species. The medicinal plants contain predominant ingredients of medicines that are administered in most of the traditional healing practices in Asia, Africa and Australia. The pharmaceutical companies draw insights from traditional practices and knowledge to develop new drugs from the herbs. The globalization and liberalization of the market have hiked the scale of trade of medicinal plants from local to global. The growing market demand on herbal products and unregulated trade have lead to over exploitation of habitat and threat to conservation approach in different regions of the world. The policy makers and scientists have recognized that adding value to medicinal plants through the development of pharmaceuticals products is a major dimension of sustainable use of medicinal plants. Conservation of medicinal plants sector is a priority area for Government of India. Different schemes have been implemented to promote herbaria, medicinal plants conservation area, promoting electronic databases, documentation and capacity building, molecular analysis, active compounds, pharmaceutical validations, domestication, adding value and marketing sector. Different pharmaceutical companies and scientists in the universities have been actively involved on the research of active ingredients as lead compounds for drug development. These dimensions of sustainable use of medicinal plants have been critically analysed in this volume.
