Conventional and Non-Conventional Strategies for Conservation of Medicinal Plants – A Mini Review

The medicinal plants have been identified as one of the most important biodiversities and a great treasure bestowed by nature. This biodiversity is constantly being altered throughout the world, both by anthropogenic as well as non-anthropogenic players. Global export of the products obtained from medicinal plants (used both by traditional and modern system of medicine) is exhibiting a declining trend during a couple of decades. The excessive consumption has put a huge pressure on their abundance, sustainability and even threatened the survival of some of the species. Therefore, serious efforts are required at individual, organisational and government level, to protect and conserve medicinal plants and make a judicious use of them. This can be accomplished by adopting different procedures and techniques broadly categorised into (a) conventional method such as in-situ and ex-situ conservation and (b) non-conventional method such as plant tissue culture. This review gives a comprehensive coverage to different ways and means, which can be exploited to conserve the precious wealth of medicinal plants and plant biodiversity in larger perspective.