Conservation

Medicinal plants are globally valuable sources of herbal products, and they are disappearing at high speed.

The good news is: You have decided to purchase a herbal product made with real plants, wild-harvested from their natural habitat. By purchasing Pharma Botanica Herbals, you are helping the sustainability of the plants. If the farmers don't have a market for these plants, they will cultivate something else.

The rapid extinction of medicinal plants has been accelerated by the increase in herbal extracts' production.

Herbal extracts use enormous raw plant material, (and fossil fuels), to create the particular chemical extracted from it. For example, 1000kg of Turmeric is used to produce a mere 24kg of Curcumin extract. In the process, all the other vitamins, minerals and shared DNA used for bioavalability in the Turmeric is gone. Why do they do this? You can't patent a naturally occurring element, but you can patent an extracted chemical and the process developed to remove it. It's more about ownership and not medicinal benefit.

Your purchase helps Pharma Botanica support the following organisations:

The Goldenseal Sanctuary in Ohio

United Plant Savers

American Botanical Council Adulteration Prevention Program (This organisation reports on ingredient substitution and adulteration)

The 150 Billion Dollar a year vitamin industry is now synthetic and no longer use plants as their source of vitamins. 

Take a look at the award-winning Australian Documentary on SBS - Vitamania. If you take vitamin supplements, you need to take them seriously.  https://www.vitamaniathemovie.com

 

THE CURRENT SITUATION

Medicinal plants are globally valuable sources of new drugs [1–4]. Over 1300 medicinal plants are used in Europe, of which 90 % are harvested from wild resources; in the United States, about 118 of the top 150 prescription drugs are based on natural sources [5]. Furthermore, up to 80 % of people in developing countries are totally dependent on herbal drugs for their primary healthcare, and over 25 % of prescribed medicines in developed countries are derived from wild plant species [4]. With the increasing demand for herbal drugs, natural health products, and secondary metabolites of medicinal plants, the use of medicinal plants is growing rapidly throughout the world [1, 6].

A highly conservative estimate states that the current loss of plant species is between 100 and 1000 times higher than the expected natural extinction rate. The Earth is losing at least one potential primary drug every two years [7].

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the World Wildlife Fund, there are between 50,000 and 80,000 flowering plant species used for medicinal purposes worldwide. Among these, about 15,000 species are threatened with extinction from over-harvesting and habitat destruction [8] and 20 % of their wild resources have already been nearly exhausted with the increasing human population and plant consumption

 

Herbal Extracts

Are particular chemicals and contain no plant DNA.

They also use a ridiculous amount of raw plant material (if they use plant material) to extract their patented chemical extract equivalent. Purchasing herbal extracts, increases the demand for them and contributes to the decimation of original source plant. Pharma Botanica is extract free, which means we are plant and planet-friendly.

 

References

1. Nalawade SM, Sagare AP, Lee CY, Kao CL, Tsay HS. Studies on tissue culture of Chinese medicinal plant resources in Taiwan and their sustainable utilization. Bot Bull Acad Sin. 2003;44:79–98.

2. Chen SL, Yao H, Han JP, Liu C, Song JY, Shi LC, Zhu YJ, Ma XY, Gao T, Pang XH, Luo K, Li Y, Li XW, Jia XC, Lin YL, Leon C. Validation of the ITS2 region as a novel DNA barcode for identifying medicinal plant species. PLoS ONE. 2010;5:e8613. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008613. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Cross Ref]

3. Chacko SM, Thambi PT, Kuttan R, Nishigaki I. Beneficial effects of green tea: a literature review. Chin Med. 2010;5:13. doi: 10.1186/1749-8546-5-13. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Cross Ref]

4. Hamilton AC. Medicinal plants, conservation and livelihoods. Biodivers Conserv. 2004;13:1477–1517. doi: 10.1023/B:BIOC.0000021333.23413.42. [Cross Ref]

5. Balunas MJ, Kinghorn AD. Drug discovery from medicinal plants. Life Sci. 2005;78:431–441. doi: 10.1016/j.lfs.2005.09.012. [PubMed] [Cross Ref]

6. Cole IB, Saxena PK, Murch SJ. Medicinal biotechnology in the genus scutellaria. In Vitro Cell Dev Plant. 2007;43:318–327. doi: 10.1007/s11627-007-9055-4. [Cross Ref]

7. Pimm S, Russell G, Gittleman J, Brooks T. The future of biodiversity. Science. 1995;269:347. doi: 10.1126/science.269.5222.347. [PubMed] [Cross Ref]

8. Bentley R, editor. Medicinal plants. London: Domville-Fife Press; 2010. pp. 23–46.

9. Ross IA, editor. Medicinal plants of the world (volume 3): chemical constituents, traditional and modern medicinal uses. New Jersey: Humana Press Inc; 2005. pp. 110–132.

10. Heywood VH, Iriondo JM. Plant conservation: old problems, new perspectives. Biol Conserv. 2003;113:321–335. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3207(03)00121-6. [Cross Ref]