Using Forests To Harvest Medicine

    Scientists have developed the first evidence that harvesting locally used medicinal plants from tropical forests could be more lucrative than clearing the land for farming or growing timber.

    Such evidence could help convince policymakers that forests should be preserved, as well as show local people who rely on the forest for income, and are tempted to clear it, that they have a stake in its preservation. That is according to researchers Dr. Michael Balick, Director of the Institute of Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Garden, and Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, associate professor of forest policy at Yale University, Their findings, based on research in Belize, were published in the journal Conservation Biology.

    With the help of a local herb gatherer, Dr. Balick collected from two plots of mature, secondary growth hardwood forest all the medicinal plants that could be sold to local herb pharmacists and healers. The plants are commonly used in the treatment of ailments such as rheumatism, indigestion, colds and diarrhea.

    At local market rates, accounting for labor costs, the plant materials from the two plots are worth $564 and $3,054, respectively. Theoretically, an herb gatherer who owns 30 acres of forest that takes 30 years to mature could harvest one acre each year. Each section would then have 30 years to regenerate before it was reharvested.

    Conservationists often argue that tropical forests should be preserved because they may contain undiscovered medicinal plants that could be worth billions of dollars if developed into drugs. Dr. Balick does not discount such notions, but that argument for preservation, which may not pay off for another decade, is of little interest to the farmer who needs to feed his family today.