Using herbs as medicine is the oldest form of health care known to humanity and to this day over 80% of the world population depends on herbal medicines and products for healthy living. There is increasing awareness and general acceptability of the use of herbal drugs in today’s medical practice. Medicinal plants constitute a source…
India is home to an amazing diversity of plants, with over 46,000 plant species recorded and approximately 760 known to be harvested from the wild for use by India’s large herbal medicine industry. An immensely vast repository of traditional knowledge in therapeutically used plants adds to its rich biodiversity, giving India a clear leeway to…
India’s largest herbal medicine supplier and the fourth largest producer of FMCG, it was established in 1884 and has grown to Rs.65 crores annual turnover in 2003. With 15% sales volume being herbal drugs and the rest mostly food and cosmetics, Dabur’s Ayurvedic Specialities Division has over 260 medicines for treating a range of conditions…
In India about 880 species of medicinal plants in active trade estimated at 1,28,000 tonnes of medicinal plant-based raw material is consumed by around 8,300 licensed units manufacturing herbal medicines and products across the country. Of these 80% is sourced from the wild. Plant-based crude drugs exported are estimated worth Rs.463 crores, the major export…
On the eastern bottleneck of India, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the Bay of Bengal in the south, West Bengal has diverse flora and fauna due to the varying altitude through the state. Forests however make up 14% of the geographical area which is less than the national average of 23%. Phytogeographically,…
Being situated on the uplands, it accommodates the upper catchments of major river systems. The Gangetic plain in the centre with highly fertile alluvial soil and the Vindhya Hills and the plateau in the south are the distinct geographical features of Uttar Pradesh. Forests constitute about 12.8% of its total geographic area, which are the…
Declared one of the five UNESCO’s World Heritage Biodiversity states, Uttarakhand in India occupies an area of 53,483 square kilometers of which 93% is mountainous and 64% is covered by forests. Perched within diverse geographical features ranging from an array of snow-capped mountain peaks and tropical forests, it is a state of natural beauty with…
Endowed with vast natural resources, the state has 603.65 square kilometers of forests within four sanctuaries at Sipahjala, Gumti, Trishna and Roa. Geographically, it lies in a strategic zone as it falls in between the Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese biological realms. Thus Tripura stands at the gateway of floral and faunal confluence. Its forests are classified…
Tamil Nadu (TN) is endowed with rich biodiversity and has the unique distinction of having two biosphere reserves, The Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR) and Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve (GOMBR). The main natural habitat types are forests, mountains, rivers, wetlands, mangroves and beaches. One-sixth of its land mass is covered with forests. The total forest…
One of the 26 biodiversity hotspots, Sikkim is a veritable treasure house of some of the world’s most beautiful streams, lakes and waterfalls. The state has rich flora and fauna despite having only 0.5% of the land of the country. It is a land of vast variation in altitude within very short distances. Elevation plays…