Project/activity information

Poverty is associated with the rural savannas and rural forest areas, where communities cannot afford to seek modern health care facilities but depend on medicinal plants for their health needs. Over 60% of the population in Ghana depends on plant parts for health delivery. This is because medicinal plants are of critical importance for poor communities, as even relatively cheap western medicines remain prohibitively expensive. The continued availability of many of these plants is in jeopardy. This situation calls for urgent action to develop alternative strategies to promote the production, utilization and conservation of medicinal plant species in general and threatened species in particular.

The developmental objective of this project is to develop conservation and sustainable utilization strategies for medicinal plant species within forest fringe communities of different ecological zones in Ghana. Specifically, it intends to document the distribution, utilization (endangered, common) and practice conservation for sustainable supply of medicinal plants from three different ecological zones in Ghana.

Expected outs are the following:
- Medicinal plant species in different ecological zones identified;
- Inventories of medicinal plant species in the three ecological zones in Ghana conducted and documented;
- Herbarium samples collected and preserved;
- Uses of identified medicinal plant species documented;
- In-situ conservation of medicinal plant species achieved;
- Ex-situ conservation of medicinal plant species achieved; and
- Communities trained in propagation, management and conservation measures