The Ayurvedic Industry and its Implications on NTFP Sustainability
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T Samraj
Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFPs) play a prominent role in the lives of indigenous communities and forest dwellers. The Ayurvedic Industry is fully dependant on the supply of NTFPs from various regions in India and abroad. Ayurvedic Oushadhashalas (hospitals) use many ingredients collected from the forests, classified as whole plant, root, stem, bark, leaf, flower, fruit and seed. According to the branch of ayurveda practiced, the ingredients are used to prepare medicines ranging from powder, extracts, concoctions, syrups, tonics, chyavanprash/lehyam etc. Nowadays, capsules and cosmetics are also prepared from NTFPs. The rate at which the industry is growing has created ahuge demand for the NTFPs and medicinal plants which is met through imports and cultivation.
Eco Certification for NTFPs & Plant Extractions from Forests in India
Snehlata Nath
Non Timber Forest Produce (NTFPs) are important natural products harvested from the forest, forming an important part of the subsistence of many indigenous communities and also a trade item for earning an income. In India, this collection and trade is important till date, the intensity varying between different communities and forest type. NTFPs, especially medicinal plants are harvested from wild landscapes and used mainly in the local health traditions, Indian systems of medicine (ayurvedic, unani and siddha) and herbal cosmetic industry. According to present market trends this herbal industry is growing at the rate of 35% per annum due to the growing demand in this sector. This has led to increased demand of raw material from the forest. According to a global estimate 70-90% of demand of medicinal plants is met by wild and uncultivated natural resources – also ensuring livelihood avenues to millions of people. This scenario necessitates a deeper look into the resources, their ecological status and their collection details by the different communities.
Exploring marketing models of Non Timber Forest Produce
Nabaghan Ojha
The eastern state of Odisha accounts for 1/4th the of forest-cover in India. Odisha also has 22% of its population belonging to adivasi (indigenous) communities. Furthermore, about 15 million people, both adivasi and non-adivasi, depend on forests for their livelihood; adivasi people depend for 6-8 months of the years on forest resources, especially NTFPs, for their subsistence as well as for cash incomes.
Mother’s Milk
On one occasion, while living in a village in the Tulsi Dongri, a thorn got my foot. It was a kuvva thorn, known for the painful effect that follows quite soon after the tip breaks off inside the skin. Even the rind of its fruit is toxic to fish; they are dried and powdered and sprinkled in shallow pools to stupefy fish in the summer months.
Community Participation in Natural Resource Management
VIKASA began its work in Vontimamidipalen, a small tribal village in Madugula Mandal. The work was wasteland development and plantations were raised in an agro-forestry model on 15 acres of land as a pilot programme. The successful work spread to twenty other villages in two panchayats – Avuruwada and Jalampalli – with support from Oxfam-India.
Wild foods for better health
Some months ago I went on a long journey through parts of tribal India. Getting off the bus in Malkangiri district, supposedly the most backward region in Odisha, I headed for a village which I frequented in the past. I noticed that the single-file trail had been widened and made jeepable and, perhaps as a consequence, many of the old silk-cotton and mango trees had vanished. The lack of shade told on me. In the village I knew most people well and very soon the mel - liquor distilled from mahua flowers – made its appearance on my arrival. I wandered about the village, exchanging news and taking in what I saw.
Mutualistic Relationships of Cycas circinalis L.
Saneesh C S & Anita Varghese
The local name for C.circinalis is eentha. It is fairly abundant in the area and represented in all stages. Cycad populations have been observed in semievergreen and moist deciduous forests at elevations ranging from 30-100 m Many plants were also found growing within the teak plantations and bamboo thickets of the area.