The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) is implementing a project to harness the potentials of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in three South Asian countries including Nepal.

“Considering the increasing value of medicinal and aromatic plants, both in terms of primary health care and as a critical source of livelihoods and income for the rural poor in the region, ICIMOD with support from the Common Fund for Commodities (CFC), The Netherlands is implementing a four-year, US$1.68 million ‘Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Developing Sustainable Supply Chain and Enhancing Rural Livelihoods in the Eastern Himalayas’ Project in three countries, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan,” states a press release by the centre.

With India providing technical expertise. ICIMOD’s Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Programme in Asia (MAPPA) is the project’s implementing agency, with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Intergovernmental Sub-Group on Tropical Fruits providing a supervisory role.

It is said that about 20,000 tons of medicinal and aromatic plants (MAP) worth US$18-20 million are traded every year in Nepal alone, and about 90% are harvested in uncontrolled fashion

“The greater Himalayan region, in fact, holds the comparative advantage of being home to many medicinal and aromatic plants found only in the region. The region also has various well-developed practices in traditional medicines (Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, among others) based on indigenous knowledge of these plants’ medicinal and healing properties. Considering the global trade in medicinal and aromatic plants – now a US$60 billion industry and still growing, especially with the increasing demand worldwide for herbal medicines – the potential of MAPs to provide relief from poverty in South Asia, where 40% of the world’s poor reside, is tremendous, if it can be tapped.”

The project’s overall objective is to conserve natural resources, reduce poverty, and improve livelihoods for mountain communities of the Himalayan region through the sustainable development and utilisation of high-value, low-volume medicinal and aromatic plants, adds the release. A recently concluded three-day inception workshop in April launched the project with implementing partners in the three countries.