Message from the Director

This issue of Biological Resources contains report of the BDCP sponsored international workshop on Commercial Production of Phytoi-nedicine and Cosmetics from Indigenous medicinal and aromatic plants. The meeting addresses practical problems concerned with the selection, processin- and development of plant medicines and cosmetics from the field, through the laboratory to the market place. It discussed the maze of regulatory hurdles a potential entrepreneur must pass to get a product accepted even in places where these medicines have been used for millennium. By having the regulatory authorities, herbalists and pharmaceutical companies' representatives at the meeting, we were able to come up with practical solutions to most of the problems discussed. The workshop was important to us in many ways: first, it demonstrated in very clear terms that it is feasible for small companies and individuals in Africa to manufacture their own medicine at affordable cost. Second, it showed that it is possible to brine, the private sector, academia and government experts together for the unified purpose of finding ways of utilizing Africa's immense biological resources in a sustainable manner. BDCP also co-sponsored a workshop in Pretoria with South Africa Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the International Organization of Chemistry for Development (IOCD) to develop a bloprospecting project in the Republic of South Africa which will harness the unique genetic resources of that country to develop pharmaceuticals and phytomedicines for domestic use and for export. The benefit derived from this project will be equitably distributed among the various stake-holders and will help the new South Africa in its capacity building and social reconstruction efforts. A note worthy feature of this SA initiative is that traditional healers, curators of botanical gardens, university professors and government scientists were all involved at the design stages of this project and will collectively see to its implementation. It will not dwell on export of raw materials to laboratories in Europe and America for processing and then wait for royalties to trickle down to South Africa.

In supporting these two initiatives, it is our intention to assist developing countries to capture the real value of their biological resources for the benefit of their communities, their nations and the entire world. For the goals of sustainable development to be achieved, it is imperative that we build strategic partnership between biotic rich countries and industrialized nations. Such partnerships should assist developing countries to process medicinal plants into phytomedicines and nutraceuticals. Apart from assisting developing countries to obtain real benefits from their genetic resources, the development of phytomedicine will perhaps help to provide a more accurate estimation of the true value of forest resources to communities that live closest to the forests. Most of the arguments advanced in support of the production of biodiversity as a renewable resource have been based on the value of medicinal plants as potential source of new pharmaceuticals. This explains why the major focus of the research carried out on the value of genetic resources have been on their use in pharmaceutical and agricultural industries, which use genetic resources as sources of information in the development of new products. While it is true that several plants have yielded valuable pharmaceuticals, drug development alone as an incentive for conservation holds little attraction to local communities, and the expected future revenues from royalty payment (if and when a new drug is discovered) can hardly compensate for the mass of income from other use options such as timber extraction and agriculture. Furthermore, over-reliance on the patronage of outsiders, multinational pharmaceutical companies and government agencies fosters a patron-client relationship which in time undermines the community cohesion and individual dignity. Some economic botany studies have included local use of medicinal plants in their cost evaluation but such studies often consisted largely of the estimated worth of individual plants in forest inventories and multiplying the number of medicinal plants found per hectare by estimated price of herbal rei-nedy or pharmaceutical products. In reality, however, only about I in 10,000 biologically active substances makes it as a new drug entity. The development process itself has been estimated to cost over $300,000,000 for a single drug and takes about three years from discovery to the market place. The cost of this type of drug development is totally outside the reach of most developing countries and local communities, (the value attached to untested species have been estimated from as little as $15 per ' sample to a ridiculous amount of $2,580,000). There is hardly any study done on nonpharmaceutical and other benefits of the value of genetic resources such as indirect, optional and existent values. In a review of six previous studies on economic value assessment, it was found that notable omissions from reports include the fact that no attempt was made to access the value of the forest to the local people ovei- and above the use value . And the assessment did not take into consideration the socio-political limitations developing countries face in attracting international fund to monetize such forest resources. Altliou(,h the results of these studies paint fabulous pictures of the value of the environment and provide cood statistics for arm chair philosophizing, in real life situations the figures simply do not add up. From the stand point of many developing countries, such studies did in fact prove that conservation of forest resources is not an "economically" viable option since (in strictly monetary term) it appears to have a negative present value. To the policy maker, what gets compared is the net return from agriculture, livestock or timber extraction with the market value of conserved forest which is zero or close to zero. There is therefore an inherent asymmetry of valuation which weighs heavily against conservation when all the indexes are based on the "willingness to pay" and "willingness to accept compensation" logic. Our basic approach is to determine the overall value of forest resources to various stakeholders in the community. In other words, the true value of the forest to an individual from the moment he wakes up in the morning to the time he retires to sleep, is what he weighs against some exoteric value "from outside". We also seek to determine the real loss to him in the absence of these resources. The evaluation of plant resources for pharmaceutical drug discovery is therefore an important but by no means the only criteria for the assessment of forest resources.

The key missing link in establishing economic incentive for biodiversity conservation is to provide a mechanism which will adequately internalize the external benefits and costs associated with using Yenetic resources. The development of phytomedicines does provide such a link. It is relatively low cost to produce and will allow the developing country to keep a greater share of the benefit. In financial terms, the market for phytoniedicines compares favorably with retums from pharmaceutical development. The International market for processed herbal product such as phytomedicine, nutraceuticals and personal care preparations is huge and has been estimated at $27 billion per annum. In 1995, China alone generated about $5 billion in the sale of medicinal herbal products. The development of traditional medicinal agents as credible phytomedicine is undoubtedly a more direct way to give value to forest resources.

We will continue this interesting comparison in the next edition. See you in February.

Maurice M. lwu.

Biological Resources is published monthly by The Bioresources Development and Conservation Programme. The information contained here is intended to contribute to the development of an integrated approach to biological resources management in which human needs and habitat conservation can both be accomodated.

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