Biodiversity and Conservation

, Volume 16, Issue 6, pp 1973–1981 | Cite as

Medicinal plant conservation and management: distribution of wild and cultivated species in eight countries

Original Paper
First Online:
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Accepted:

Abstract

In order to understand the particular challenges that medicinal plant conservation and management raise at the global level, it is necessary to address issues pertaining their distribution and the environments where they grow. When reviewing medicinal plant studies from eight countries in four regions we found that a high proportion of the reported medicinal plants had wide distributions across countries and continents. Most plants are found wild (40.5%) or naturalized (33.9%), while only 3.3% are cultivated. Since many species are distributed in wild conditions, cultivated and naturalized in several continents, conservation and management interventions would be best served through collaboration between host countries.

Keywords

Biodiversity Agro-landscapes Species diversity Medicinal plants Conservation 
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Notes

Acknowledgment

M.Aguilar Støen has received support from the Norwegian Research Council project number 158984/510.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Center for Development and the Environment (SUM)University of OsloBlindern, OsloNorway
  2. 2.Department of Ecology and Natural Resource ManagementNorwegian University of Life SciencesAsNorway

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