Medicinal Plants and Ethnomedicine in Peril: A Case Study from Nepal Himalaya

Abstract EN

The impacts of climate change were severe on indigenous medicinal plant species and their dependent communities.

The harvesting calendar and picking sites of these species were no longer coinciding and the changes were affecting harvesters’ and cultivators’ abilities to collect and use those species.

Secondary sites: road-heads, wastelands, regenerated forests, and so forth, were being prioritized for collection and the nonindigenous medicinal plant species were being increasingly introduced into the medical repertoire as a substitution and to diversify the local medicinal stock.

Acceptance and application of nonindigenous species and sites for livelihood and ethnopharmacopoeias with caution were considered as an important adaptation strategy.

Findings on species and site specific accounts urged further researches on medicinal plants, ethnomedicine, and their interrelationship with impacts of climate change.