Forest dwellers who have lived in jungles of India for generations often have traditional knowledge about medicinal plants. Should they be allowed to collect these and market these from inside the boundary of protected forest? Justify your opinion
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Answer:
Medicinal plants were listed as a provisioning ecosystem service in the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005. India has had an ancient history of both codified and non-codified healing systems that use medicinal plants across the subcontinent.
Medicinal plants play a crucial role in drug discovery, with at least 25 percent of modern medicine being derived either directly or indirectly from them.
Challenges to conserving medicinal plants include overharvesting, biodiversity loss, eroding traditional knowledge and climate change.
Under the principle of access-and-benefit sharing, as listed by the Convention of Biological Diversity and India’s Biological Diversity Act, local communities should benefit from sharing their plant resources and traditional knowledge with others.