Case studies tagged with Aromatics and Medicinal plants

During the last years there has been a growing interest from young people to get involved in the AMP exploitation business. The rich Greek flora and the plenty of abandoned agricultural fields in rural areas offer a great potential in this direction. However, most of the young farmers/entrepreneurs didn’t have a relative experience in the field and there has been many fails and disappointments.

In the Doñana National Park in Andalusia, short-rotation coppice eucalyptus plantations occupy large areas and belong to private forest owners.

« Esencias Garcia-Palomo » distillery uses 5,000 kg of eucalyptus branches and leaves every day for its production of 10 to 40 kg of essential oil. Not being a forest owner, this resource is a cost to the company.

Mr. Palomo has organized with his neighbors to work in symbiosis and limit the costs of their respective operations : the collection of his raw materials contributes to the silviculture of coppices of eucalyptus.

The role and importance of organic production lie in the sustainable management of natural resources (preserves soil fertility, flora and fauna, water and atmosphere), forbids the use of chemical means of protection and fertilizers, restoring balance to nature and thus preserves biodiversity, encourages rural development and facilitates the development of small family farms, contributes to the development of eco-tourism and eco-villages and thus links agricultural, tourism and craft activities.

The main objective of this guide and its booklets for each species is to provide the pickers with knowledge of specific aromatics and medicinal plants and to serve as support for their training to adopt respectful practices guaranteeing sustainable management of the natural resources.

Its construction is based on a collection of knowledge and practices of pickers, analyzed with a group of scientists with regard to sustainable resource management (threats and renewal challenges).

The objective is also to enhance the picking profession by disseminating its knowledge and know-...

Under this framework, the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, UOI, developed a web database of medicinal plants of the region of Epirus and the mainland of Greece, that contain all basic information related to the morphology of the herbs, official and popular names, taxonomy, pharmacological properties, side effects and toxicity, etc.

The users can retrieve information related to a particular medicinal plant using its official or popular name, the active compound of  interest, the disease to be treated, or the region the herb grows. For every herb there are...

• Establish, by compilation of data obtained from collectors and producers, a list of plant species picked for artisanal or industrial production chains,

• Referencing these species according to their validated scientific name,

• Provide some indicators of the risks that could weigh on these species.

Sideritis sp. are among the most overhavested in Greece and many wild populations are threatened. It is used for the preparation of herbal tea, known as Mountain tea which is widely consumed due to its properties known from folk medicine. The traditional use of 4 Sideritis sp. has been adopted by HMPC in a herbal monograph (1) and several studies have been reported on its pharmacological properties. The overharvesting has put a pressure onto its populations. The MOUNTEA-CONSE project (2) aimed at the development of conservation and sustainable exploitation activities for...

Plešivičko gorje (Plesivica hills) is located in the far eastern part of Žumberak-Samoborsko gorje Nature Park, near the towns of Samobor and Jastrebarsko. The highest parts of this hill area are wooded, and beneath this area there are meadows which are close to arable land - fields, orchards and vineyards. The aim of this study was to determine the flora of meadows in Plešivica hills and to isolate and describe medicinal, aromatic and honey plants.

Private forest is often very fragmented: forestry operations  and forest products marketing  are difficult on small areas. Owners have organized themselves into a forest management association (ASLGF) to group their plots into a single management unit. Their objective is to jointly lead the development of their forests. In addition to harvesting wood, they also registered collective production of essential oils of Scots pine. They wish to label themselves as a Forest Economic and Ecological Interest Group (GIEEF).