Vietnamese Herbs Selected For NZ Research
Dr Chris Wheatley and Campbell Berry-Kilgour of Forest Herbs Research, Dr Tap and Mr. My of Materia Medica and project coordinator Ha Do examining the Mountain Tortoise, a large tuber that grows as a vine.
A New Zealand aid project centered on impoverished hill tribes in northern Vietnam has taken a big step forward, with the selection of a final list of five medicinal plant species for clinical trial.
Peter Butler of the Nelson based company Forest Herbs Research Ltd, which is spearheading the project, says the aim is to market products based on these plants in the West, at the same time assisting conservation by planting the species sustainably.
"Right now rare medicinal species are endangered by the tribes-people ripping up plants growing in the wild, to supply herb companies in Vietnam and China," he said. "We aim to develop sustainable cultivation and harvesting techniques for selected plants, and to develop western markets for them, with a significant proportion of the value added going back the to hill tribe people."
Vietnamese ethnobotanical experts spent two months earlier this year identifying the 20 potentially most useful of the endangered species, out of the 900 odd medicinal plants in the Lao Cai province on the northwest border with China. A workshop was held in the town of Sa Pa at the end of May to reduce the list further for in-depth production trials, clinical studies and market research.
Mr. Butler said the workshop heard agronomic information from Dr Tap, the botanical director of the Vietnamese Institute of Materia Medica; the market potential of the species was discussed and then local commune representatives, Hanoi plant and conservation experts, district officials and Forest Herbs representatives, narrowed the list to five.
"We'll be keeping the selection confidential until the project is further advanced, so commercial advantage is not lost by the local participants," Mr. Butler said. "It is likely that the research program will find some of them unsuitable for western markets or that clinical trials will yield unsatisfactory results."
Mr. Butler said a lot of effort has to go into making sure the plants meet the criteria of acceptance by increasingly strict regulatory regimes. The literature search on each species involves scanning old pharmacopoeia in Vietnam, and also in Paris where information was taken by the French at the end of colonial rule.
The New Zealand involvement in the project stems from the expertise of the Nelson Company, Forest Herbs Research Ltd, which developed the international anti-fungal brand Kolorex from a little known New Zealand native plant, Horopito. This company is contributing its time at cost, while NZAid is funding the two and half year project.
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