Rainforest pharmacopeia in Madagascar provides high value for current local and prospective global uses.

ABSTRACT: Botanical diversity provides value to humans through carbon sequestration, air and water purification, and the provisioning of wild foods and ethnomedicines. Here we calculate the value of botanical ethnomedicines in a rainforest region of Madagascar, the Makira Protected Area, using a substitution method that combines replacement costs and choice modeling. The Makira watershed may comprise approximately 0.8% of global botanical diversity and possesses enormous value both in its ability to provision botanical ethnomedicines to local people and as a source of potentially novel pharmaceutical drugs for society as a whole. Approximately 241 locally-recognized species are used as ethnomedicines, including 113 agricultural or weed species. We equated each ethnomedicinal treatment to the monetar

SUBMITTER: Golden CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3407148 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature