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Medicinal Plant Conservation Medicinal Plant MEDICINAL PLANT SPECIALIST Conservation GROUP Volume 14 Newsletter of the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Chaired by Danna J. Leaman Chair’s note .......................................................................................................................................... 2 Regional file An evidence-based approach to conservation through medicinal plants - Alan Hamilton .................... 2 Medicinal plants of Ukraine: diversity, resources, legislation - Valentyna Minarchanko ..................... 7 Update on international processes The new FairWild standard – a tool to ensure sustainable wild-collection of plants - Wolfgang Kathe ................................................................................................................................. 14 Access and Benefit Sharing under the Convention on Biological Diversity – Update from CoP 10 in Nagoya - China Williams ..................................................................................................................... 17 CITES News: 15th CITES Conference of the Parties - Uwe Schippmann ......................................... 21 Excerpt from Accessibility of wild products. Biodiversity for Food and Medicine indicators part nership 2010 - TRAFFIC International and the IUCN/SSC Medicinal Plant Specialist Group ......... 24 Notices of publication ........................................................................................................................ 29 February 2011 sented on the FairWild Foundation Board and on Chair’s Note its Technical Committee. Helle Larsen provides an excerpt from our reporting on the development of an indicator of conservation trends in biologi- cal diversity used for food and medicine, under- Danna J. Leamann taken with TRAFFIC as part of the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership. Uwe Schippmann reports This 14th volume of Medicinal Plant Conserva- on several proposals adopted by the 15th CITES tion inaugurates the new online format, and ends a Conference of the Parties that build on work under- long hiatus for readers and contributors since vol- taken by MPSG to revise the annotations relating ume 13 was published in December 2007. We owe to medicinal plants and to promote the application many thanks to former editor Uwe Schippmann, of ISSC-MAP principles in non-detriment findings. to Natalie Hofbauer, and to the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) for produc- You may note that this volume retains “Notices of ing 13 print volumes of this newsletter since 1995. publication” as a standard feature (with thanks to I’m delighted to welcome the new editor, Helle O. Uwe Schippmann and Helle Larsen for its compi- Larsen, and extend my thanks to the University lation), but other elements previously included in of Copenhagen and to DANIDA for their support. Medicinal Plant Conservation (a listing of mem- I’m also pleased to report that the full texts of all bers, ongoing project updates, notices of upcoming previous volumes are now available to download events) will be found on the MPSG website. from the MPSG website [www.mpsg.org], where you will also find instructions for submissions to upcoming volumes. Please be aware that all inter- net browsers may not support downloading the pdf Regional file files of previous volumes; Google works well. This volume features contributions relevant to me- dicinal plant conservation methods, national-level management, and international policy that illus- An evidence-based approach to conser- trate the wide scope of relevance of medicinal plant vation through medicinal plants conservation. Alan Hamilton proposes a model and best-practice hypothesis for medicinal plant con- Alan Hamilton servation highlighting the importance of personal relationships between community groups, project 1. Why conservation through medicinal plants? teams, and policy makers. Valentyna Minarch- enko provides a thorough overview of the medici- Biological conservation should be pursued across nal plant flora and its conservation in the Ukraine. the landscape, especially at this time of climate China Williams gives us a look into the complex change, to promote survival of genetic diversity, history and controversial negotiation of an interna- supplies of biotic resources for local needs, and tional Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing at delivery of ecosystem services. Conservation at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Conven- this scale requires concomitant social engagement. tion on Biological Diversity. A challenge for the conservationist is to identify features of local societies favourable towards This volume also contains comprehensive updates conservation and then, where needed, find ways to of work in which MPSG has formally had a role. encourage them. Wolfgang Kathe comments on the evolution of the International Standard for Sustainable Wild Collec- Medicinal plants may offer exceptional tion of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP) opportunities for landscape-scale conservation into the more comprehensive FairWild Standard where many people depend on these resources. The version 2.0 [see www.FairWild.org], which was argument is that the major benefits associated with launched in 2010. MPSG is currently well repre- these plants can serve as motivational foundations Page 2 February 2011 to improve the management of the plants and their (PULLIN & KNIGHT 2001, SUTHERLAND et al. 2004). habitats. First, however, methods of converting people’s interests in these plants into actions on the Evidence-based research entails the formulation and ground need to be established. presentation of formal hypotheses on best practice, based on systematic reviews of the evidence relating The major benefits provided to societies by locally to the success or failure of efforts to deal with growing medicinal plants are support for local particular issues. The hypotheses are then available healthcare, opportunities for income generation, for wider application or further development. More and affirmation of local culture. Medicinal plants weight may be given to evidence believed to be can assume particular prominence in places that especially conclusive, for example (in medicine) are poorly provisioned with conventional (western) the results of double blind trials compared with health services, economically disadvantaged, and anecdotal reports of drug effectiveness. ‘Evidence- with cultures distinct from those that are nationally based’ does not mean ‘cookbook’, as some doctors dominant. (and conservationists) have feared. Rather, it means integrating the expertise of the individual The whole socio-ecological system needs to be taken practitioner, gained through self-development and into consideration in efforts to achieve conservation practice over the years, with the best evidence through medicinal plants. Interventions should available from systematic research (SACKETT et al. be appropriate to local livelihoods, workable 1996). for village institutions, and entail a socially acceptable distribution of benefits and costs. This Here we present the results of a four-year (2005- is particularly so for medicinal plants growing in 2008) programme of Plantlife International aimed those wilder habitats, such as forests, which are at the promotion and development of community- typically of most value for conservation of genetic based conservation through medicinal plants. The diversity (considering the national or global scale) programme included fourteen projects and eight and provision of ecosystem services (e.g. carbon countries in East Africa and the Himalayas, regions sequestration, soil stabilisation and delivery of selected because of the high level of dependency water supplies). These habitats are sometimes of rural communities on medicinal plants. All legally protected, but, even where this is so, in projects provide evidence on the question ‘How practice they are often subject to virtually ‘open can community-based conservation be achieved access’ exploitation of their biological resources. through medicinal plants?’ Ten of the projects Their management is hard to improve without the were field projects, one (in Kenya) involving engagement of the whole community. communities at three contrasting locations, so that the effective size of the field sample is twelve. 2. Evidence-based science The other four projects were exercises to share Conservation in the ‘real world’ (outside the confines experiences between the countries and identify of strict nature reserves or ex situ collections) is best practice. All field projects were carried out a multi-disciplinary challenge. Every place has by national partners (NGOs or research institutes) its own peculiarities, as do all practical efforts following their own approaches, though sometimes aimed at conservation. Therefore, it can be difficult influenced by interactions with Plantlife or one to know why any particular conservation effort another. Details of the reasoning behind the has succeeded or failed. From the perspective of hypothesis and descriptions of the case studies are scientific methodology, the problem of determining available elsewhere (HAMILTON 2008), as is a fuller best practice in conservation has a parallel with account of one of the projects (PEI SHENGJI et al. medicine, also a real world, multi-disciplinary, 2010). challenge. In some parts of the world, medicine has undergone an ‘effectiveness revolution’ over recent 3. A best practice hypothesis on conservation
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