The sustainability of trade in wild plants-A data-integration approach tested on critically endangered Nardostachys jatamansi.

While the demand for many products from wild-harvested plants is growing rapidly, the sustainability of the associated plant trade remains poorly understood and understudied. We integrate ecological and trade data to advance sustainability assessments, using the critically endangered Nardostachys jatamansi in Nepal to exemplify the approach and illustrate the conservation policy gains. Through spatial distribution modeling and structured interviews with traders, wholesalers, and processors, we upscale district-level trade data to provincial and national levels and compare traded amounts to three sustainable harvest scenarios derived from stock and yield data in published inventories and population ecology studies. We find increased trade levels and unsustainable harvesting focused in specific subnational geographical locations. Data reported in government records and to CITES did not reflect estimated trade levels and could not be used to assess sustainability. Our results suggest that changing harvesting practices to promote regeneration would allow country-wide higher levels of sustainable harvests, simultaneously promoting species conservation and continued trade of substantial economic importance to harvesters and downstream actors in the production network. The approach can be applied to other plant species, with indication that quick and low-cost proxies to species distribution modeling may provide acceptable sustainability estimates at aggregated spatial levels.

Ethnomedicinal landscape: distribution of used medicinal plant species in Nepal.

BACKGROUND: The risk of losing traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and their use and conservation is very high. Documenting knowledge on distribution and use of medicinal plants by different ethnic groups and at spatial scale on a single platform is important from a conservation planning and management perspective. The sustainable use, continuous practice, and safeguarding of traditional knowledge are essential. Communication of such knowledge among scientists and policy makers at local and global level is equally important, as the available information at present is limited and scattered in Nepal. METHODS: In this paper, we aimed to address these shortcomings by cataloguing medicinal plants used by indigenous ethnic groups in Nepal through a systematic review of over 275 pertinent publications published between 1975 and July 2021. The review was complemented by field visits made in 21 districts. We determined the ethnomedicinal plants hotspots across the country and depicted them in heatmaps. RESULTS: The heatmaps show spatial hotspots and sites of poor ethnomedicinal plant use documentation, which is useful for evaluating the interaction of geographical and ethnobotanical variables. Mid-hills and mountainous areas of Nepal hold the highest number of medicinal plant species in use, which could be possibly associated with the presence of higher human population and diverse ethnic groups in these areas. CONCLUSION: Given the increasing concern about losing medicinal plants due to changing ecological, social, and climatic conditions, the results of this paper may be important for better understanding of how medicinal plants in use are distributed across the country and often linked to specific ethnic groups.

Patterns of change: The dynamics of medicinal plant trade in far-western Nepal.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Combined quantitative and qualitative environmental product trade studies, undertaken in the same location over time, are instrumental in identifying plant species with commercial demand and explaining what drives temporal changes. Yet such dynamic studies are rare, including for Himalayan medicinal plants that have been large-scale traded for millennia. AIM OF THE STUDY: To (i) investigate changes in medicinal plant trade in the past 17 years, and (ii) identify the main factors driving changes, using a study of Darchula District in far-western Nepal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medicinal plant production network data were collected from March to August 2016, for the fiscal year 2014-15, for Darchula District in far-western Nepal through 167 quantitative (58 harvesters, 38 sub-local traders, 25 local traders, 25 central wholesalers, and 21 regional wholesalers), 61 qualitative (15 sub-local traders, 19 local traders, 15 central wholesalers, and 12 regional wholesalers) interviews, and four focus group discussions. Results were compared to previously unpublished similar data for Darchula District for the year 1997-98, using quantitative and qualitative interviews with 10 local traders, 20 central wholesalers, and 53 regional wholesalers. Data analysis was guided by an analytical framework derived from Global Production Network theory. Quantitative data were used to estimate changes in 12 indicators while the qualitative information allowed identification of the factors driving observed changes in the indicators. RESULTS: The volume of medicinal plants traded from Darchula District in the fiscal year 2014-15 was 401 t with a harvester value of USD 5.5 million, representing a 2.3 fold increase in volume and 17.2 fold increase in value compared to 1997-98. Trade in the two observation years comprised 30 air-dried plant products (from 28 identified species as well as lichens and a mineral substance); 12 products were traded in both periods, while seven disappeared, and 11 new products entered the trade. The number of traders increased from 10 to 63, mainly due to the emergence of a single high value product yarsagumba (Ophiocordyceps sinensis), a fungus-caterpillar complex which alone contributed 85% of total trade value. Over the observed time period, harvesters and traders increased their margins at the cost of central wholesalers, indicating that market changes favoured lower tier actors, eroding the previously identified passive central wholesaler oligopsony in Nepal. Important drivers of market changes are: (i) rising incomes in China and India, expressed through demand for new products and increasing per unit prices for a range of products, (ii) expanding infrastructure (roads and telecommunications) towards and into harvesting sites, reducing transport costs and increasing market efficiency, and (iii) government interventions, causing disappearance of some species from trade. These market changes also led to increased cultivation at lower altitudes, and a sharp increase in the number of processor industries in Nepal. CONCLUSION: Trade in medicinal plant products in far-western Nepal in the past two decades has increased substantially, doubling in volume and increasing 17 fold in value. There is a backbone of constantly traded species but also species that disappear from trade and new species that enter. Changes favour harvesters and traders at the benefit of central wholesalers whose previous passive oligopsony is disappearing. The three main drivers of change are rising incomes in China and India, expanding infrastructure, and government interventions in Nepal. Commercial medicinal plant resources are a substantial asset that appears to offer opportunities for economic development in far-western Nepal. The trade, however, may pose sustainability threats that are best understood by combining species-level biophysical, trade, and consumer studies.

Factors Contributing to the Decline of Traditional Practices in Communities from the Gwallek-Kedar area, Kailash Sacred Landscape, Nepal.

Traditional knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized in the resource conservation and management practices, however are declining in many parts of the world including Nepal. Studies on the inventory of traditional knowledge are available, albeit limited, and empirical analysis of factors contributing to the decline of traditional knowledge are negligible in Nepal. We thus initiated this study in the Nepal part of the Kailash Sacred Landscape to (i) document traditional knowledge and practices on agriculture, forest-based herbal remedy, and genetic resource conservation; and (ii) identify factors contributing to the decline of traditional practices in the communities. Data was collected during September-December 2015 through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and households survey. The household survey data was used in binary logistic regression analysis to identify factors contributing to the decline of six key traditional practices. The study documented 56 types of traditional practices. The regressions showed that the age of the respondent, distance to the nearest forest, distance to the nearest motorable road, family members' ill health, and seasonal migration of the household members for jobs significantly influencing to the decline of the particular traditional practices, however, their effects vary within a practice and among the practices. The use of modern medicine, increasing road linkages, decreasing trend of plant resource availability, and agriculture intensification are responsible for the decline of the particular traditional practices. We recommend to recognize their significance in the governing socio-ecological systems and to link the traditional and scientific knowledge systems through policy formulations.

High altitude organic gold: The production network for Ophiocordyceps sinensis from far-western Nepal.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Ophiocordyceps sinensis (Berk.) G.H.Sung, J.M.Sung, Hywel-Jones & Spatafora, a high altitude Himalayan fungus-caterpillar product found in alpine meadows in China, Bhutan, Nepal, and India, has been used in the Traditional Chinese Medicine system for over 2000 years. Heightened demand in China over the past 15 years, coupled with limited production, has led to a price hike and increased economic importance of harvests to rural households throughout the species' range. There is, however, limited knowledge on the actors and profit distribution in the O. sinensis production network, especially from the distribution areas on the southern flanks of the Himalayas. Filling in this knowledge gap is essential to the identification and design of public interventions. AIM OF THE STUDY: To describe and quantify the O. sinensis production network originating from Darchula District in far-western Nepal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data was collected, for fiscal year 2014-15, in spring and summer 2016 using standardized collector (n=56) and trader (n=45) questionnaires in Darchula District, and central wholesaler (n=9) questionnaires in cities of Nepal. All questionnaires contained quantitative and qualitative components focusing on key elements of the production network, i.e. value creation, enhancement, and capture; and network and territorial embeddedness. RESULTS: Trade is sustained and significant even at the margins of the distributional range, with 384.1 kg of O. sinensis harvested in and traded from Darchula District in 2014-15, having a collector value of approximately USD 4.7 million and constituting the dominant household-level source of income for collectors. The functioning production network is characterised by conflicts in relation to value creation, a high share of value capture by collectors, limited value enhancement, and a high degree of network and territorial embeddedness. CONCLUSIONS: O. sinensis income is of major economic importance for rural households at the margin of its distribution range in Nepal. Production networks operated by informal actors establishing trust-based relationships allow responses to cross-border market signals, enabling the flow of rural and remote environmental resources to urban centres of demand. There is scope for public interventions, e.g. to determine the drivers of demand.