Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
Genetic resources or biological materials derived from plants and animals remain the the basis for improvement of agricultural crops and for medicines for 75 per cent of the world's population. The biotechnology industry has harnessed living organisms to produce a variety of products, such as medicines and cosmetics. More controversially, …
The ongoing medicinal plants patent controversy has another entrant: ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), a plant that is widely recognised for its medicinal worth and commonly found in India. A study conducted by the Patent Facilitating Centre of the New Delhi-based Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council, verified that in the past …
seabuckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) grows in the cold desert regions in Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. Scientists value it for its medicinal properties. The deciduous bushy-tree is another one of the plants found in India that private companies from the rest of the world trade in but which the Indian …
While tiger parts, ivory and sandalwood smuggling continue to attract all the public attention, what India is losing is its medicinal wealth to well-organised smuggling networks run by thousands of Veerappans all across the country. Mum's the word on the trade practices, while forests, whether in the north, south, east …
It is a common sight near every forest area to see loaded trucks making their way through the dark cover of the night. The first thought that crosses one’s mind is that they are weighed down with timber. Wrong. Many times, what is being carried out is the herbal treasure …
In April 1999, a director of a reputed environmental organisation in Dehradun was tipped off about 12 trucks waiting at the check-post in Dehradun. They were carrying in various quantities medicinal plants that did not feature in the list of ntfp allowed to be collected in the region comprising Uttaranchal, …
The Indian herbal industry is estimated to have a turnover of Rs 2,300 crore annually. It is also involved in the export of finished products, intermediaries and bulk raw materials. More than 90 per cent of the plant species used by the industry are, however, collected from the wild of …
Considering the shortage of medicinal plants and the need to sustain ism, cultivation and sustainable harvesting of plants from the wild has become absolutely necessary. One way of solving the problem would be to encourage cultivation by small farmers and tribal people and make big manufacturers of herbal products source …
Realising the importance of medicinal plants in the health care system available to the poor people, the department of family welfare of the mohfw started the vanaspati van yojna as part of the reproductive and child health programme in October 1997. In other words, it means converting large areas of …
How is the department of ISM promoting cultivation? The Medicinal Plants Board (MPB) has been established recently to take care of all the different aspects of cultivation, but it is difficult to say at this moment what the policies are going to be. What plants are being emphasised on for …
Three hours from Madurai is Shenbaha Thopu. Rich in forest wealth, the peripheries of the forests are inhabited by 24 families of the Pallyan community who have traditionally been involved in the collection of non-timber forest produce (ntfp). Now something else has become a part and parcel of their lives: …
many medicinal plants species in Meghalaya and other north-eastern states are on the verge of extinction because of uncontrolled and illegal trade. This was stated in a recent report of the Trade Records Analysis of flora and Fauna in Commerce , India. The report also recommended that Coptis teeta and …
the rich treasure of India's medicinal plants is ready to be traded. S C Sharma, additional inspector general of forests (wildlife) in the ministry of environment and forests ( mef ) has announced the permission to export more than 1,000 herbs from the wild. "Wild' herbs include those found in …
a medicinal plant stakeholders meeting was organised by Trade Record and Analysis of Flora and Fauna In Commerce ( traffic ) India, on 6-7 November, 2000. Trade-related issues of medicinal plants were discussed during the meeting. Speaking at the inauguration, Shailaja Chandra, secretary of the department of Indian systems of …
Fauna and Flora International and the United Nations Environmental Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, have jointly launched a Global Trees Campaign programme in an attempt to save more than 8,000 tree species, which are on the verge of becoming extinct. One in ten of all tree species are in danger of …
a group of developing countries, headed by India, is compiling the world's first digital library on traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and systems. It will become operational within a year. The library is being jointly set up by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research ( csir ), two Union …
for more than half a century, the National Botanical Research Institute ( nbri ) in Lucknow has been doing pioneering work in the collection, study and conservation of the vast and varied floral diversity of India. With the entry of P Pushpangadan as its director, the institute is at the …
it was a long bitter fight. But for India, it ended on a promising note. Consistent campaigning by non-governmental organi-sations ( ngo s) in both India and abroad forced the revocation of a patent granted jointly to the us Department of Agriculture ( usda ) and the us chemical major …
After a six-year-long battle India has finally managed to see a patent application filed for an extract of the neem tree be rejected in a European court. The decision by the European Patent Office invalidated a patent granted jointly to the us department of agriculture ( usda ) and the …
it is indeed a shame that a country like India, with its vast indigenous and traditional knowledge base, should be a helplessly bystander as the patenting of many of its traditional systems goes on with unfailing regularity. A few are challenged but by and large patents in this field go …
