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Vinson Kurian

The Herbal Bio Valley is proposed to be developed over a region extending from the Silent Valley to Wayanad and including portions of the Western Ghats.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, March 20

THE proposed Silent Valley Biosphere Reserve has moved one step closer to becoming a reality with the State Finance Minister, Mr K. Sankaranarayanan, incorporating the same in the State Budget proposals and earmarking a token allocation of Rs 10 lakh for carrying out `preliminary work' on the project.

The carving out of a separate Silent Valley Biosphere Reserve is one of the highlights of a report submitted to the Government by an expert panel headed by Dr M.S. Swaminathan. The panel had subjected for comprehensive analysis the issue of building a sustainable agricultural trade security system for the State in the context of implementation of the WTO-led trading regime.

The Herbal Bio Valley, touted to be the first such in the world, is proposed to be developed over a region extending from the Silent Valley Biosphere Reserve up to Wayanad and including portions of the Western Ghats around the vicinity Agasthyakoodam, internationally acknowledged as a `biological hotspot'.

Modelled on the Silicon Valley, the Bio Valley will be equipped to take care of the software needs of a dynamic medicinal plant industry. The Bio Valley will also feature infrastructure required for seed multiplication, including facilities for tissue culture, validation, certification and producer-oriented marketing, among others.

The expert panel had suggested that the State Government constitute a project design team ideally consisting of experts drawn from within the State, representatives of the Central Medicinal Plants Board, the Central Bioresources Board, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) and the Agriculture and Allied Products Export Development Authority (Apeda).

The Bio Valley project is a logical extension to the line of thought forcefully argued in the report and which overwhelmingly favours herbal medicine and ayurveda, along with tourism, as the two potential high-growth areas that call for focussed attention from the State Government. Areas rich in medicinal plants could be developed into herbal sanctuaries so that the unique biological wealth is safeguarded and conserved for posterity.

With the increasing global acceptance of herbal systems of medicine, demand for medicinal plants has been growing by leaps and bounds within the country and abroad.

Over 95 per cent of the medicinal plant species that go into the preparation of ayurvedic and herbal medicines, cosmetics and healthcare products, is collected from the wild. Indiscriminate destruction of forests, together with unscientific extraction of the plant parts and overexploitation for exports, have led to the extinction of many valuable medicinal plants. The expert panel called for instituting steps for strengthening the medicinal plants resource base by promoting the in situ and ex situ conservation and large-scale cultivation of medicinal plants with the involvement of tribal families, NGOs, farmers and corporate bodies.

The cultivation of plants that are in demand in the ayurveda system of medicine may be taken up on a contract basis with selected pharmaceutical companies. This would help foster organised sourcing of the material and also help strengthen the livelihoods of tribal and rural families.

The cultivation of medicinal plants for which there is a market, based on assured buyback arrangements, could thus be an important component in the State Government's programmes for tribal families.

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