Forests and Ecology Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Lattakia, Syria, E-mail: walaa_adra@hotmail.com
Millions of families around the world depend heavily on non-wood forest products. Coinciding with the sustainable development movement, there was a growing recognition of the actual and potential value of forests that encouraged a renewed academic interest in small forest products. Medicinal plants are considering among the most over-exploited nonwood forest products (NWFPs) that is because of the growing interest in green pharmaceutical that does not have anticipated effects, beside environmental importance of medicinal plants and its role in achieving biodiversity conservation goals. It became necessary to find a solution for achieving sustainable use of these non-wood forest products. Hence, the domestication and cultivation of medicinal plants could be an option or complement to address the problem of over utilization, taken into account the economic and ecologic impacts.
Sustainability, Domestication, Non-wood forest products
