Adulteration and substitutions are frequent in raw material trade of medicinal plants. Several studies have been done for a number of important crude drug materials to distinguish the genuine material from adulterant. The efficient way to determine adulteration is through morphological and organoleptic studies. The objective of this study is to find out current harvesting methods, malpractices adopted by various stakeholders and ocular analysis of market samples, impacting quality of raw (dry) produce of selected species in market of Nagpur. In the natural forests Baibirang (Embelia ribes Burm.), Safed musli (mixed tubers of Chlorophytum borivilianum Baker, C. tuberosum Baker.), and Aonla (Emblica officinalis Gaertn.) were collected just after the rains at unripe stage. The ocular observations of the market sample of Aonla, Baibirang fruits, Safed musli tubers indicate that mixing of old and diseased parts of same species and other adulterants is rampant in the local market. Laboratory analysis shows that in one kilogram of market sample, more than 20% raw material was found adulterated in all the selected species except Bach (Acorus calamus L.). Most of the selected plants were found adulterated, both intentionally and unintentionally. Major reasons for poor quality are unripe harvesting, mixing of inferior and cheap plant parts, mis-identification of species, non-availability of plant parts in required quantity, etc. Key words: Adulteration, quality, medicinal plants, harvesting, malpractices. DOI: 10.3126/eco.v16i0.3471ECOPRINT 16: 35-42, 2009
The present paper reports the prevalent harvesting practices of an important NTFP species, Aonla, Emblic myrobalan (Emblica officinalis) which grows as an associate in tropical dry and moist deciduous forests in large parts of India. Aonla fruit is a rich natural source of vitamin C and is an integral part of a number of Ayurvedic (Indian system of medicine) formulations. Aonla fruits start maturing after December but due to great demand by industries and intense competition among collectors, pre-mature harvesting starts in October. The entire fruit collection is over within a span of 2-3 weeks. Prevalent harvesting practices of Aonla fruits involve lopping and pollarding of branches and in some places even felling of the whole tree.The results reported in this paper pertain to some tropical dry deciduous forests of central India, which form an industrial catchment for the supply of raw Aonla fruits for pharmaceutical preparations to the prominent industries located in the area. The study compared the impact of extraction of fruits in Protected Areas (PAs) as well as in multiple use natural forests. While extraction of NTFPs from PAs is legally restricted, although villagers on the fringes sneak in and collect some quantity of fruits, no such restriction exists in multiple use forest areas.
The conservation and sustainable use of forest resources is emerging as an issue of great national and global concern. Forest resources worldwide, and particularly in developing countries, are prone to various threats. In the past few decades, recording of forest benefits was one of
the major prioritized concerns. Proper forest resource valuation and accounting would help better understanding of the stock and flow of the forest resources and thus represent the status of forests resources not only in quantitative/qualitative terms but also in monetary terms. The article
presents two case studies to highlight the conventional system of forest resource accounting (FRA); estimate the values of various forests goods and services; and reflect on the extent of distortion in the existing system of FRA. It also presents an approach for improving the conventional
system of FRA through incorporation of unrecorded forest benefits.
Forest Resource Accounting (FRA) is an important instrument of sustainable forest management (SFM). It facilitates estimation of the economic value of tangible and intangible forest benefits and the contribution of the forestry sector to gross domestic product (GDP). This article presents
a critical review of the practice of FRA in the light of experience in India. Case studies are used as the empirical basis to propose an improved system of FRA on lines of the system of integrated environmental and economic accounting (SEEA). Also explored is the role of FRA in facilitating
the achievement of the goals of SFM. The study shows that the contribution of the forestry sector to India's economy could be significantly enhanced if the value of unrecorded forest benefits were included in the national system of accounts.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.