How Can India Leverage Its Botanic Gardens for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Wild Food Plant Resources through the Implementation of a Global Strategy for Plant Conservation?

Abstract

Wild food plants (WFPs) are consumed by the indigenous communities in various parts of the world for food, nutrition, and medicinal purposes. They are usually collected from the wild and sometimes grown in the vicinity of the forests and the dwellings of the indigenous people in a way such that they are not far from their natural habitats. WFPs are important for the food and nutritional requirements of the indigenous communities. The WFPs are seasonal and collected from the wild whenever they are available. Therefore, the food menu of the tribal co mmunities changes with the seasons. A number of studies have demonstrated various WFPs consumed by indigenous communities including India. The results show that an enormous diversity of WFPs is consumed by the indigenous people of India. However, a few studies also suggest that the consumption of WFPs among the indigenous communities is declining along with the dwindling of traditional ethnobotanical knowledge linked to the collection, processing, cooking, storage, and limited cultivation of WFPs. India can leverage the network of its botanic gardens for the conservation of its wild food plant resources, the traditional and indigenous knowledge linked to it, and its popularization among the citizens within the framework of Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC). This article provided an overview of the need to focus on WFPs, limitations of current studies, and role of botanic gardens in the conservation of wild food plants through the implementation of GSPC. This article further provided a framework for the role of botanic gardens in the popularization of WFPs, increasing the awareness about their importance, documentation, and preservation of the traditional knowledge linked to various aspects of WFPs within the GPSC framework.

Keywords

• wild food plants
• botanic gardens
• ex situ conservation
• traditional knowledge
• wild plant resources
• traditional ethnobotanical knowledge