Herbal medicine: Old practice and modern perspectives

Abstract At present, the concept of health consciousness in urban and rural people is becoming increasingly popularized. Keeping in mind the health effects of modern medicine, people have been using herbal medicines either alone or in combination with other products to achieve this state of health. There are substantial monetary profits associated with the expansion and use of plants with medicinal importance and their associated products in aboriginal medications in disease treatment, which indicates that the ways are widening for the herbal renaissance. This is evident from reports published by the World Health Organization (WHO) that 70%–80% of the global population fulfills its primary healthcare needs by using different herbs for medicinal purposes. From prehistoric times to present day, about 53,000 species of herbs are exploited in human disease treatment. The controlled accessibility of various agents needs to be considered if plant-based medicinal products are to be developed as chemotherapeutic medicines. Due to this overexploitation, many species are threatened with extinction. For the judicious use of herbal medicines and their products, great care should be kept in mind while using these herbal medicines, and their overexploitation must be controlled. This can only be achieved when we strive hard to implement three major goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity (1992): conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of biodiversity components, and fair and equitable benefit sharing from genetic resources. Although plants with medicinal and aromatic importance have not been clearly on the program of biodiversity convention conferences, the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity are wholly related to these resources of plants with medicinal value.