Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan needs proper documentation of work being done on medicinal plants in the country, and a national display centre must be established to exhibit these plants for marketing purposes, Ministry of Climate Change Secretary Syed Abu Ahmad Akif said on Thursday.

He was addressing the inaugural session of national ethnobotanical seminar at the Pakistan Museum of Natural History (PMNH) as the chief guest. The seminar was jointly organised by PMNH, Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Mountain and Marketing (M&M) and the UNDP.

PSF Chairman Prof Dr Muhammad Ashraf, Adviser to PM on Climate Change Rizwan Mehboob, Ministry of Climate Change Inspector General (Forest) Syed Mehmood Nasir, IUCN Country Representative Mehmood Akhtar Cheema and PMNH Director General Dr MK Leghari were present on the occasion.

A large number of botanists, botany students and teachers, representatives of NGOs also attended the seminar. An attractive exhibition of medicinal plants and products was also arranged on the occasion.

The federal secretary said that a lot of work was being done at the community level regarding ethnobotany, especially drying vegetables, fruits and sea buckthorn products in the country. He said this work should be highlighted through short documentaries for the benefit of the people.

He called upon the IUCN, UNDP and other stakeholders to join hands for documenting the traditional knowledge about various uses of plants.

PSF Chairman Prof Dr Muhammad Ashraf on this occasion announced that a world-class botanical garden would be established at the PMNH. He deplored that Pakistan had only 6,000 listed species of plants, whereas a large number of oceanic floras still needed to be explored and listed.

Dr Ashraf said that in the absence of plants DNA bar coding, there was a potential risk of exploitation of medicinal and other valuable plants through illegal export.

He stressed the need for DNA bar coding on an urgent basis to preserve and protect the valuable medicinal plants and traditional knowledge.

Forest IG Syed Mehmood Nasir said that 177 countries signed the Convention on Biological Diversity. He said that according to the convention, all signatory governments were bound to respect the knowledge of local people, and the pharmaceuticals using this knowledge were bound to share the profit with the local communities. He was of the view that due to side effects of allopathic medicines, various medicine companies were again using herbal products.

IUCN Country Representative Mehmood Akhtar Cheema and PMNH Deputy Director General Dr Muhammad Rafiq also spoke on this occasion. They said that our life and comforts depended upon plants, which greatly influenced our culture and shape civilisations.