Methods for Conserving Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) have been the backbone of traditional healthcare systems for thousands of years. From Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine to indigenous healing practices across Africa and South America, these plants have provided remedies, fragrances, and livelihoods to billions of people. But today, they face serious threats. According to the IUCN and the World Wildlife Fund, roughly 15,000 medicinal plant species are threatened with extinction due to overharvesting and habitat destruction. About 20% of wild medicinal plant resources have already been nearly exhausted. Conserving these plants is no longer optional – it is urgent. Two primary conservation approaches help address this crisis: in situ conservation (protecting plants in their natural habitats) and ex situ conservation (preserving them outside their natural environments).

Why conservation of medicinal and aromatic plants matters 🔗

MAPs are not just plants – they are economic assets, cultural heritage, and ecological pillars. More than 75-80% of the world’s population uses MAPs in some form for health support. In developing countries, traditional medicine built on these plants remains the primary form of healthcare for the majority of the population. Modern pharmaceuticals also owe a great deal to these plants – drugs like digitoxin (from foxglove), quinine (from Cinchona bark), and vincristine (from the periwinkle plant) were all originally derived from medicinal plant species.

Economically, the global trade in MAPs has grown rapidly. Global trade values rose from approximately US$1.1 billion in 1999 to US$3 billion by 2015, and demand continues to climb. This increasing commercial pressure, combined with habitat loss from deforestation, urbanisation, and agricultural expansion, has put enormous strain on wild populations of medicinal plants. Around 9% of MAP species used globally are now considered threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, while a staggering 79% have not even been assessed for their conservation status.

Climate change compounds the problem. Shifting rainfall patterns and rising temperatures are altering the habitats where these plants grow, affecting their distribution, growth, and the quality of their bioactive compounds. Without active conservation strategies, we risk losing not just plant species but the traditional knowledge systems, livelihoods, and healthcare options tied to them.

In situ conservation: protecting plants where they naturally grow 🔗

In situ conservation means protecting medicinal and aromatic plants within their natural habitats. This approach preserves not just the target species but the entire ecosystem – the soil conditions, pollinators, associated organisms, and ecological relationships that allow these plants to thrive and produce their valuable bioactive compounds.

Protected areas: reserves, national parks, and sanctuaries 🔗

The most widely used method of in situ conservation is the establishment of protected areas. These include national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, biosphere reserves, and dedicated conservation zones. In India, for instance, biosphere reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, and sacred groves serve as key in situ conservation tools for medicinal plants. The Western Ghats – one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots – houses numerous protected areas where a wide diversity of medicinal plants are conserved alongside other flora and fauna.

India has also established over 115 Medicinal Plants Conservation Areas (MPCAs) specifically designed to preserve indigenous medicinal species in their natural settings. These dedicated zones focus specifically on MAP species rather than general wildlife, making them a targeted tool for conservation of plant-based healthcare resources.

Wild nurseries 🔗

A wild nursery is an area established near or within a plant’s natural habitat specifically for cultivating and domesticating endangered medicinal species. Wild nurseries can serve as an effective approach for in situ conservation of medicinal plants that are endemic, in high demand, or endangered. They help maintain the natural growing conditions that are essential for producing the full range of medicinal compounds in a plant, something that is often difficult to replicate in artificial settings.

Community-based conservation 🔗

Local and indigenous communities often possess deep knowledge about the medicinal plants in their region – where they grow, when to harvest them, and how to use them sustainably. Community-managed forests and community-led conservation initiatives can be remarkably effective because they combine traditional ecological knowledge with on-the-ground stewardship.

When communities are actively involved in managing and monitoring plant resources, overharvesting can be significantly reduced. They can enforce sustainable harvesting practices – such as collecting only certain plant parts (leaves instead of roots), harvesting at specific times, and leaving enough individuals to regenerate – that help maintain healthy populations over time.

Sacred groves 🔗

In many parts of India and Africa, sacred groves – patches of forest protected by local communities for religious or cultural reasons – have served as de facto conservation areas for centuries. These groves often harbour rare and threatened medicinal plant species that may have disappeared from surrounding areas due to development or overuse. Their continued protection through cultural traditions represents a valuable form of community-driven in situ conservation.

Sustainable harvesting guidelines 🔗

Overharvesting from the wild is one of the biggest direct threats to MAPs. In situ conservation also involves implementing and enforcing sustainable harvesting standards. The FairWild Standard, developed with support from IUCN and TRAFFIC, provides a framework for assessing whether wild plant harvests meet ecological, social, and economic sustainability requirements. It helps ensure that commercial demand does not outpace the ability of wild populations to regenerate.

Ex situ conservation: preserving plants outside their natural habitats 🔗

Ex situ conservation involves maintaining and preserving medicinal and aromatic plants outside their natural habitats. This approach acts as a safety net – an insurance policy against the loss of species in the wild due to habitat destruction, climate change, or overexploitation. It is especially important for species with slow growth rates, low natural abundance, or high vulnerability to diseases.

Botanical gardens 🔗

Botanical gardens are among the oldest and most well-known ex situ conservation tools. They maintain living collections of plant species, including many threatened medicinal plants, and serve multiple functions: conservation, research, education, and public awareness. According to Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), botanic gardens play a major role in connecting in situ and ex situ conservation, and contribute to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity through their expertise in taxonomy, horticulture, and botanical research.

In India, institutions like the Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) in Kerala and the Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM) maintain extensive collections of medicinal plants for both conservation and research purposes.

Gene banks 🔗

Gene banks are specialised facilities that store genetic material from plants in various forms. There are several types:

Seed banks store seeds under controlled conditions of low temperature and humidity, allowing them to remain viable for decades or even centuries. Seed banks preserve the biological and genetic diversity of wild plant species and provide relatively quick access to plant samples for evaluation and conservation purposes. India’s National Seed Gene Bank, managed by the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR) in New Delhi, stores seeds of thousands of plant species, including many MAPs.

Field gene banks maintain living plant collections in cultivated fields. These are particularly useful for species that produce seeds that cannot survive long-term storage (known as recalcitrant seeds) or species that are primarily propagated vegetatively. A notable example is the field gene bank in Bharsar, Uttarakhand, which conserves over 50 temperate medicinal and aromatic plant species, many of which belong to rare, endangered, and threatened categories.

Cryobanks store plant germplasm (such as seeds, pollen, or tissue cultures) at ultra-low temperatures in liquid nitrogen (around −196°C). This method allows preservation for extremely long periods without genetic deterioration and is suitable for species whose seeds cannot be dried and stored conventionally.

Tissue culture and micropropagation 🔗

Modern biotechnological techniques have expanded the possibilities for ex situ conservation. In vitro tissue culture and micropropagation allow scientists to produce large numbers of plants from small amounts of tissue in a laboratory setting. Biotechnical approaches including tissue culture, micropropagation, and synthetic seed technology can be applied to improve yield, conserve genetic diversity, and even modify the potency of medicinal plants.

These techniques are particularly valuable for species that are difficult to propagate through conventional means, have very low seed production, or are critically endangered with very few surviving individuals. According to researchers, in vitro techniques enable selection, propagation, and ex situ conservation of critically endangered MAPs in a much shorter time compared with traditional methods.

Comparing in situ and ex situ conservation 🔗

Both approaches have their strengths and limitations, and effective conservation programmes typically combine the two.

In situ conservation is ideal because it preserves plants along with their natural evolutionary processes, ecological interactions, and the full genetic diversity of wild populations. Plants conserved in their native environments continue to adapt to local conditions, which is critical for their long-term survival and for maintaining the quality of their medicinal compounds. However, in situ methods are vulnerable to the very threats they aim to address – habitat destruction, climate change, and illegal harvesting can undermine even well-managed protected areas.

Ex situ conservation provides a backup. It safeguards genetic material that can be used for future replanting, breeding, and research. The genetic material stored in gene banks is readily available for evaluation and use, without the need for costly field expeditions. However, ex situ methods cannot preserve the complex ecological relationships that plants depend on in the wild, and reintroducing species back into natural habitats from ex situ collections remains a significant challenge.

The most effective strategy is an integrated one – using in situ methods to protect plants and ecosystems in the wild, while maintaining ex situ collections as insurance and for research and breeding purposes.

The role of policy and international frameworks 🔗

Conservation of MAPs does not happen in isolation – it requires supportive legal and policy frameworks at national and international levels.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 🔗

The Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is the primary international framework governing biodiversity conservation. It has three main goals: conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components, and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from genetic resources. With 196 parties, it has near-universal participation. The CBD’s Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and the Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit-sharing are directly relevant to MAP conservation, ensuring that countries and communities that harbour these resources share in the benefits derived from their use.

CITES 🔗

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) regulates international trade in threatened species, including many MAPs. Over 1,280 MAP species are listed under CITES, which helps monitor and control trade volumes to prevent species from being driven to extinction by commercial demand.

National-level initiatives 🔗

Countries have also established their own conservation frameworks. In India, the National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB) leads conservation efforts, with the Central Sector Scheme (2021-26) allocating significant funding for plantations, research, and marketing support. The National AYUSH Mission promotes the cultivation of medicinal plants integrated with farming systems, and platforms like e-CHARAK facilitate trade and market access for farmers growing MAPs.

Challenges in conservation of MAPs 🔗

Despite the availability of effective conservation methods, several challenges persist. Climate change is altering temperature and precipitation patterns, directly impacting the growth, distribution, and chemical composition of medicinal plants. Research has shown that climate change has led to a decline in suitable habitats for many species, with range shifts observed across dozens of taxa and several species now at risk of extinction specifically due to climate-driven habitat loss.

Habitat destruction from urbanisation, agricultural expansion, and deforestation continues to shrink the natural spaces where these plants grow. Overharvesting driven by growing market demand, particularly from the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and food industries, is depleting wild populations faster than they can regenerate. Lack of awareness among harvesters about sustainable collection practices makes the problem worse. And inadequate funding and weak enforcement of existing regulations often leave conservation efforts underpowered.

Another significant challenge is the sheer scale of what remains unknown. A large proportion of MAP species worldwide have not been assessed for their conservation status, which means many threatened species may be slipping toward extinction without any formal recognition or protection.

The way forward 🔗

The future of MAP conservation depends on a combination of approaches. Strengthening protected area networks, expanding community-based conservation programmes, investing in gene banks and seed banks, and applying modern biotechnological tools like tissue culture and molecular marker-based techniques all need to happen in parallel.

Equally important is building awareness – among farmers, harvesters, policymakers, and consumers – about the value of these plants and the consequences of their loss. Integrating MAP conservation into broader agricultural and environmental policies, supporting research on climate-resilient species, and ensuring that the economic benefits from MAPs flow back to the communities that steward them are all essential steps.

Conservation is not just about saving individual species. It is about maintaining the living systems that support human health, cultural traditions, and ecological balance.

What do you think? With medicinal plants facing threats from multiple directions simultaneously, which conservation approach – protecting plants in their natural habitats or preserving them in gene banks and botanical gardens – do you believe should receive more investment and attention? Can local communities play a bigger role in preventing the loss of these irreplaceable natural resources?

References

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4967523/
2. https://www.genevaenvironmentnetwork.org/resources/updates/geneva-expertise-in-medicinal-and-aromatic-plants-conserving-health-heritage-and-livelihoods/
3. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-44914-7_14
4. https://www.bgci.org/our-work/inspiring-and-leading-people/policy-and-advocacy/convention-on-biological-diversity/
5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/ex-situ-conservation
6. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273695834_Ex_situ_conservation_of_medicinal_and_aromatic_plants_in_Bharsar_Uttarakhand_India
7. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/9781003226925-2/ex-situ-conservation-medicinal-aromatic-plants-using-vitro-techniques-bengu-turkyilmaz-unal-huseyin-turker-munir-ozturk
8. https://www.cbd.int/
9. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2024.1496792/full