Biodiversity and conservation of Rare, Endangered and Threatened medicinal plants of Western Ghats of India
About Course
India is one of the few countries in the world which has a rich wealth of medicinal plants.
Representing one of the world’s mega biodiversity centers, India is 10th among the gene-rich countries of the world and 4th among the countries of Asia. The Western Ghats of India are among the ecologically richest regions and are considered one of the eight hottest biodiversity hotspots of the 34 identified biodiversity hotspots worldwide. Western Ghats represent one of the major repositories of tropical medicinal plants that are used in traditional medicinal treatments. It has around 4,000 species of higher plants of which 500 species have medicinal value. However, several factors are putting India’s medicinal plants at risk of extinction.
It can be noted that the plants that were very common in the area when they were first studied have gotten into the IUCN Red List over the years. Rauvolfia serpentina, Saraca asoca, Gymnema sylvestre, Gloriosa superba, Strycnos nux-vomica, etc. are included in the list of plants that are very rich in their medicinal strength but are on the verge of extinction. The majority of medicinal plants from the Western Ghats, used extensively in traditional medicine, are seldom cultivated. In the absence of cultivation practices, there is destructive harvesting for various plant parts such as stems, roots, or tubers in more than 70% of the plant collections and this leads to their depletion from the wild. In addition, with expanding global market, many important medicinal plants are becoming scarce and some are on the brink of extinction. In recent years, the growing demand for herbal products has also led to a quantum jump in the volume of plant material traded within and outside the country. Consequently, the danger is looming large with respect to the threat to genetic stocks and to the diversity of medicinal plants. The preservation of this medicinal plant diversity is, therefore, of utmost importance and needs to be addressed seriously on high priority. Therefore, it is important to conserve the extensively traded medicinal plants in their natural environment or cultivate them in favorable environments.
Course Content
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Class Recording
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