Sustainable wild collection of medicinal and aromatic plants

Between 50,000 and 70,000 plant species are known to be used in traditional and modem medicine systems throughout the world. Uncounted additional species are used in the growing cosmetics and botanicals industries. The great majority of these materials is provided by collection from wild resources. Notwithstanding growing interest in cultivation, wild collection is likely to continue as the principal source for most species of medicinal and aromatic plants, in most parts of the world, based on biological, economic and social factors. Building on successes in the development of sustainable harvest and resource stewardship standards in other sectors such as timber, non-wood forest products, organic agriculture and marine aquarium fish, an initiative has recently been launched to develop an international standard and criteria for good practice in the sustainable wild collection of medicinal and aromatic plants. This paper summarizes the current status of work to develop this standard, supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (Bundesamt fur Naturschutz - BfN), WWF Germany and TRAFFIC Europe-Germany), IUCN Canada and the Medicinal Plant Specialist Group.