How much work has been done so far on threat status of Indian Medicinal Plants?
Globally, about 10 percent of the known flowering plants are threatened with extinction. Similar estimates have been made for India also. In comparison with the magnitude of possibly threatened species of medicinal plants only preliminary work on identifying threatened species has been initiated. Since the rapid methods are not perfect, they do provide the first indications of threat. To focus on threat assessment for medical plants the Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT), Bangalore and CBSG-India are working jointly. FRLHT has facilitated six rapid assessment workshops in peninsular India during 1995-2001. The results include separate assessments for five states- Maharashtra, Andhra pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu, besides a consolidated, regional assessment for the latter three states i.e. southern India together. These six workshops covering five states were held at Bangalore (4), Pune (1) and Hyderabad (1) in the winter season (January to Mar
