Bio-Diversity and Conservation of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

India, with its diverse agro-climatic conditions and regional topography, has been considered as the treasure house or botanical garden of plant genetic resources. Hence, India is recognized as one of the world’s top 12 mega diversity nations. Our herbal wealth constitutes more than 8,000 species and accounts for around 50 % of all higher flowering plant species of India; around 70 % of the medicinal plants in the country are spread across the tropical forests of Western Ghats. However, available information shows that 1,800 species are used in Classical Indian systems of medicines. Ayurveda uses 1,200, Siddha -900, Unani -700, Amchi -600, Tibetan-450. The emerging field of herbal products industry holds a great potential to the economic development of the Indian region. Usage of herbs as a source of food, medicine, fragrance, flavour, dyes and other items in Indian systems of medicine is in increasing trend. It is estimated that, 95 % of the medicinal plants used in Indian herbal industry today are collected from wild. About half a million tonnes of dry material is collected through destructive means indiscriminately and 1.65 lakh ha. of forest is cleaned and felled each year. With the increase in population, rapid expansion of area under food and commercial crops, deforestation, extension of urban area, establishment of industries in rural areas, etc., there is considerable depletion of plant genetic resources wealth, many of them being in the process of extinction day by day [1,2].