Why conservation of medicinal plants?
Well-reasoned arguments were made many years ago to raise public awareness that tropical rain forest and seasonally dry mansoon forest were destroyed in alarming peace. These arguments were largely ignored and today dramatic pleas were made to conserve our bio-diversity. They too are often falling on deaf ears except of a few environmentalist and organizations. The cry of ecological genocide, genetic erosion, biotic degeneration, global crisis, fragmentation, destruction, extinction of our biological heritage, all is consequence of inaction (Krikorian 1998). Nevertheless, the destruction of forest continues faster than ever pace. Medicinal plants and their natural habitat are under greater threat of over exploitation than ever before. Indian herbal industry has an annual turnover of about 300 million US dollars. The world market of medicinal herbs for skin care and toiletries are worth US $ 1 billion (Farida Binti Ahmad Fadzil 1998). Several tones of medicinal plants are harvested ever
