Welcome to Medicinal Plant Conservation Park of southern India Database web site.

The Ex Situ group, FRLHT has been coordinating the establishment of a chain of 19 Medicinal Plant Conservation Parks (MPCP) and nurseries by NGOs and Research Institutes of the three states of Tamilnadu, Kerala and Karnataka.

These parks and nurseries serve as community conservation education centers and as repositories of the region's medicinal plant resources and local health knowledge. The program is a collaborative effort between FRLHT and non-governmental organisations.

Ideally, the medicinal plant species should be conserved as evolving populations in nature. In the ex situ context it is difficult to maintain viable breeding populations in Parks because of the constraints of the size (6-30acres) of herbal parks. Thus, limited accessions of a few hundred species are conserved in each park. The advantage of this programme is that it is easy to supply plant material for propagation, for re-introduction, for agronomic improvement, for research and for education purposes from the network of medicinal parks.

By end of 2000 - 2002, each MPCP is in the process of becoming a regional resource center of learning wherein there is authentic and thorough documentation available of the natural and cultural heritage of the region relating to medicinal plants. It also serves as a training center for rural households, for schools and colleges and for government departments on the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants, particularly in the context of primary health care.

As of March 2002, all the centers have planted an average of 300 species of medicinal plants, including RET species in their respective Ethno-Medicinal gardens.
  

Conservation of Regional medicinal plants This component of the programme consists of the following:
Ethno Medicinal Forest (EMF)	This is essentially a live collection of the region's (district's) entire medicinal plant diversity known to the local people and used by them for medicinal purposes. Medicinal plant species are planted in an area of 5 to 25 acres of land. These plots mimic as far as possible the real forest type for the area. Attempts are also made to include possible genetic variations within the collection. In EMF, at present, special emphasis is being given to the ex situ conservation, propagation of RED LISTED medicinal species of southern India.
Herbarium, Seed, Rawdrug, (HSRD)	Herbarium-Seed-Raw Drug Center houses the collections, is a repository of the documented local health traditions of the region. It also serves as the pool of germ plasms. Over 616 medicinal plants seed materials have been stored in these regional centers.
Demo-garden	Demo-gardens are established in the Medicinal Plants Conservation Parks. Besides attracting the visitors the gardens are more informative, generally serve as an educational and training facility. These gardens impart different themes and efforts have been taken to reflect the culture of the bioregion. Model sacred grooves, plants used in ethno veterinary treatment of the region, garden of zodiac signs are a few to mention.
The Outreach Nursery	The MPCPs maintain Nurseries to meet the medicinal plant needs of different target groups. Depending upon the area of operation, satellite nurseries are located outside the centres. In 2000-1, the aim was to make this activity sustainable. This was to be achieved through making the nurseries self-sustaining in producing and selling saplings to a wide range of buyers. This was to continue successfully even after the MPC-RLHT project comes to an end.
Income Generation	A separate public limited company called the Gram Mooligai Company Limited with the avowed objective of generating income and employment opportunities for rural communities was registered in January 2000. The commercial operations began in September 2000 and the income generation funds were deployed to be managed by the company. As against a target of Rs 10 lakhs to mobilise 100 tons of raw herbs through 200 acres of cultivation and collection, Rs 11.3 lakhs was utilised. 200 acres of Cassia angustifolia, 60 acres of Catharanthus roseus and 10 acres of Bacopa monnieri was cultivated through 12 cultivator sanghas. 40 tons of collection of the following herbs were organised through 8 gatherer sanghas. The important herbs were Eclipta prostrata, Tribulus terrestris, Boerhavia diffusa, Mollugo ceruviana. The impact of this performance would be seen and analysed in the following year, as there is a time gap between growing and selling in the market.
Kitchen Herbal Garden (KHG)	The Kitchen herbal garden (KHG) program is meant to provoke people's action on two fronts  1. To conserve medicinal plants and  2. To revitalize local health traditions.  The aim of KHG program is to create awareness of healthy living through a self-help mode, among the communities. The program can be initiated by anyone who is interested to help oneself and also to train others to help themselves. This manual is a ready reference for such a volunteer - to play the role of a local resource person.