Herbal medicine use and sustainable biodiversity implications are something we all should be concerned about. In age of digital media where news “right or wrong”, “fact or fiction” “fake or real” spreads like fire, its imperative we stop and think before jumping on to the bandwagon. Being an Ayurveda physician though i will restrict myself to herbs. Over years as digital media and instant messaging has grown with cheap data plans, I have seen a surplus growth of herbal cures and methods being propagated over social platforms through handheld devices. To be honest, I could relate to the good intention behind it overlooking the marketing economics & popularity sojourns associated with some of them. However for the first time in few months I am beginning to observe its repercussions on a grander scale.
Over 15 years of my Ayurveda clinical practise, my main mode of work has been to preserve bio-diversity (or in simpler terms herbs in their natural habitat) by creating awareness and sustainable picking. This is ensured through educating the locals about their herbal surroundings in remote villages (mainly in the western ghats & the Himalayas) and buying from them at a higher rate the selected produce in small quantities ensuring that the picking promotes more crop of the same species in coming years without any in-rooting of invasive species. Unfortunately in past few years this activity has seen cascading decline. Though there are many contributing factors to it like;
- The local youth getting more lucrative job opportunities
- Growing tourism
- Urbanisation
- Lack of transfer of traditional knowledge within generations
the one major impact has been digital media.
