Medicinal Plant Conservation
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MEDICINAL Medicinal Plant PLANT SPECIALIST GROUP Conservation Silphion Volume 11 Newsletter of the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Chaired by Danna J. Leaman Chair’s note . 2 Sustainable sourcing of Arnica montana in the International Standard for Sustainable Wild Col- Apuseni Mountains (Romania): A field project lection of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants – Wolfgang Kathe . 27 (ISSC-MAP) – Danna Leaman . 4 Rhodiola rosea L., from wild collection to field production – Bertalan Galambosi . 31 Regional File Conservation data sheet Ginseng – Dagmar Iracambi Medicinal Plants Project in Minas Gerais Lange . 35 (Brazil) and the International Standard for Sus- tainable Wild Collection of Medicinal and Aro- Conferences and Meetings matic Plants (ISSC-MAP) – Eleanor Coming up – Natalie Hofbauer. 38 Gallia & Karen Franz . 6 CITES News – Uwe Schippmann . 38 Conservation aspects of Aconitum species in the Himalayas with special reference to Uttaran- Recent Events chal (India) – Niranjan Chandra Shah . 9 Conservation Assessment and Management Prior- Promoting the cultivation of medicinal plants in itisation (CAMP) for wild medicinal plants of Uttaranchal, India – Ghayur Alam & Petra North-East India – D.K. Ved, G.A. Kinhal, K. van de Kop . 15 Ravikumar, R. Vijaya Sankar & K. Haridasan . 40 Taxon File Notices of Publication . 45 Trade in East African Aloes – Sara Oldfield . 19 Towards a standardization of biological sustain- List of Members. 48 ability: Wildcrafting Rhatany (Krameria lap- pacea) in Peru – Maximilian Weigend & Nicolas Dostert . 24 ISSN 1430-95X 1 August 2005 and several additional events during the Congress, Chair’s Note including a workshop on developing a standard for sustainable wild collection of medicinal and aromatic plants, sponsored by the German Federal Agency for As this 11th volume of Medicinal Plant Conservation Nature Conservation (BfN), and a round-table discus- is ready for printing, the Species Survival Commis- sion of the Guidelines on the Conservation of sion (SSC) and its specialist groups are once again Medicinal Plants, currently being revised. A motion preparing to launch a fresh programme of work and urging IUCN members to support the revision of membership for a new IUCN intersessional period. these Guidelines, sponsored by the Government of Under the direction of the new Commission Chair, Dr India (Ministry of Environment and Forests), WWF – Holly Dublin, the procedures for reconstituting the Germany, and the Canadian Museum of Nature, was Commission membership are being reviewed and up- adopted by a large majority of the Members Business dated, including a more efficient electronic member- Assembly (see Box 1). ship information management system. The process of Project Updates invitation / re-invitation of Medicinal Plant Specialist Group (MPSG) members for the 2005-2008 IUCN Revised Guidelines on the Conservation of Medicinal quadrennium should be underway soon. In the mean- Plants: I wish to thank the MPSG members and other time, MPSG members continue to work on global readers of this newsletter who have commented on and regional projects, to move forward with the for- the outline and two circulated drafts of the revised mation of regional sub-groups, and to lay the founda- Guidelines during a global consultation process tion for a global assessment project intended to make which began in 2003. The 2nd draft was circulated for a significant contribution to the work of SSC identi- comments in December 2004 to more than 700 indi- fied in the SSC Strategic Plan 2001-2010. viduals and institutions world-wide. Comments Box 1. Resolution 3.073 Conservation of medicinal plants. Adopted by the Members Business Assembly, 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress, Bangkok, Thailand, November 2004. […] The World Conservation Congress at its 3rd Session in Bangkok, Thailand, 17-25 November 2004: 1. SUPPORTS the revision of the 1993 Guidelines on the Conservation of Medicinal Plants as a joint underta- king of WHO, WWF, TRAFFIC, and IUCN in consultation with a broad spectrum of stakeholders; 2. URGES the herbal products and pharmaceuticals industries, donors, development aid agencies, national governments, conservation and rural development NGOs, and other stakeholders, to endorse and implement the revised Guidelines; and 3. REQUESTS the IUCN Director General and the SSC to provide technical and scientific assistance to this process and institutional partnership, and especially to civil society and local communities, where this is possi- ble within funding and other constraints, in order to complete the revision, and to publish and make widely available the revised Guidelines. 3rd IUCN World Conservation Congress received are currently being incorporated into a 3rd Interest in the sustainable use and conservation of draft, which will then be submitted for approval to the medicinal species – animals as well as plants – was four author agencies – WHO, IUCN, WWF, and evident during 3rd IUCN World Conservation Con- TRAFFIC. On behalf of IUCN, the MPSG and the gress, held in Bangkok, Thailand, in November 2004. Wildlife Trade Programme are working to raise the A day-long workshop during the World Conservation funds required to support finalization and implemen- Forum, entitled “Conserving Species – Securing tation of the Guidelines, including through regional Medicine for the Future” featured relevant work workshops and translation into French, Spanish, undertaken by members of the IUCN, as well as with- Chinese, Arabic, and other regional languages. A in the IUCN programmes and commissions. (The workshop to launch the Guidelines in Latin America proceedings of this workshop are available on the is being coordinated by the MPSG regional sub- IUCN website: www.iucn.org/congress/wcforum/fo group for the Caribbean and South America during rum_th_biodiversity-proceed.htm) MPSG members the IX Latin American Botanical Congress, 19-25 and project partners were involved in this workshop June 2006, in the Dominican Republic, and plans are 2 Medicinal Plant Conservation 11 also underway for implementation activities in South the MPSG, as it is currently stated, is: Asia, coordinated by the MPSG sub-group for this To support and promote efforts leading to medici- region. nal plant conservation and rational, sustainable Revision of CITES #-Annotations for medicinal and use. Our approach is to provide information, tools, aromatic plants: As part of an ongoing consultancy and strategy coordination that builds on the efforts undertaken by the MPSG to the CITES Secretariat to of local, national, regional, and global partners to identify problems that may arise because of unclear conserve and use medicinal plants sustainably, annotations regarding medicinal plant species includ- focusing particularly on actions that reduce threats ed in the Appendices of CITES, a second interim to endangered species and habitats. report was submitted to the CITES Plants Committee A workplan for the current IUCN quadrennium for consideration during the Fifteenth meeting of the (2005-2008) that will enable the MPSG to contribute Plants Committee in Geneva (Switzerland), 17-21 to the priority targets of the SSC Strategic Plan, with- May 2005. The report is available on the CITES web- in the boundaries of our stated aim, might have the site (www.cites.org/eng/com/PC/15/index.shtml). following objectives: Recommended changes to the current annotations for medicinal plant species are based on an initial MPSG • Establishment of regional sub-groups and pro- report and recommendations approved at the 13th grammes of work for the MPSG in the Pacific, meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP13, Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, North Bangkok, 2004; see also p. 38 f.). Asia, and Africa (regional sub-groups have alrea- dy been established in South Asia and the Carib- International Standard for Sustainable wild Collec- bean/South America). tion of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (ISSC-MAP): The German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation • Expansion of global conservation assessment of / Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN) has provided start- medicinal plants through regional Red List trai- up funding for the development of an international ning and assessment projects, identification of re- standard and performance criteria for the sustainable gional Red List Authorities for medicinal plants in wild collection of medicinal and aromatic plants. The collaboration with other SSC Specialist Groups, project is outlined in further detail in this issue of and support for regional medicinal plant conserva- MPC (p. 4 f.). tion data management capacity. Red List Assessment and Management Planning: Re- • Ongoing contributions to the development of a sults of conservation status assessment and manage- practical and widely relevant standard for sustain- ment planning workshops for priority medicinal plant able wild collection of medicinal plants. species in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Nica- • Ongoing partnership through IUCN with WHO, ragua, and Honduras are being completed for submis- WWF, and TRAFFIC enabling the publication, sion to the IUCN Red List programme. These work- distribution, and implementation of the revised shops were supported by the Global Environment Guidelines for the Conservation of Medicinal Facility (GEF) through United Nations Environment Plants. Programme (UNEP) support for a Medium Size Pro- • Continued publication of Medicinal Plant Conser- ject: “Biodiversity Conservation and Integration of vation