Bhubaneswar, Sept. 11 -- Experts on Friday called for urgent measures to conserve medicinal plants, warning that one of the oldest sources of healthcare is facing growing threats from human intervention, overharvesting, habitat destruction and climate change.
Addressing a two-day national seminar on "Medicinal Plants as Nature Pharmacy: Understanding Their Therapeutic Promise and the Challenge of Conservation" at SOA Deemed to be University here, Prof. (Vaidya) Rabi Narayan Acharya, Director General, Central Council for Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), said medicinal plants constitute the material basis of Dravyaguna Vijnana (Ayurvedic science), while about 85 per cent of drugs in use are derived from natural resources.
He said med...