| Overview : The Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have been supporting the conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants in India. UNDP and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) have been major donors of various medicinal plants conservation projects since 1993 in many states of the country. Till date, 108 Medicinal Plants Conservation Areas (MPCA) have been set up across 12 States as a key strategy for in-situ conservation of significant medicinal plants. Some Medicinal Plants Conservation Areas MPCAs (~200Ha) have a buffer zone of ~1300 hectares called Medicinal Plants Development Area (MPDA). The Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT) has been instrumental in conceptualizing and also facilitating setting up of these MPCAs and MPDAs with the help of state forest departments. In the current GEF-GoI-UNDP supported project, 21 Medicinal Plants Conservation Areas (MPCAs) have been set up in three Indian States: Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand.
UNDP and the Government of India are working together to get these MPCAs and MPDAs evaluated, to design a comprehensive strategy to establish new MPCAs/ MPDAs and to manage these MPCAs and MPDAs. This process is also expected to highlight some of the good practices being followed across these MPCAs and MPDAs which could be mainstreamed into the policies and practices of the forestry sector at the national, state and divisions level. UNDP is seeking to engage an agency with sufficient understanding of the task to undertake this assignment |
