Javier Echeverría
javier.echeverriam@usach.cl
Departamento de Ciencias del Ambiente, Facultad de Química y Biología, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Santiago, Chile.

Climate change and human activities severely threaten the viability of plants and ecosystems, endangering the environment, biodiversity, and the sustainable development of plant-based products. Biotic and abiotic (ecosystem) factors influence species distribution and long-term survival, which in turn affect the quality of plants used as herbal medicines and other high-value products. In recent decades, various human impacts have significantly compromised these quality aspects. Climate change, overharvesting, habitat destruction, species vulnerability, and other factors have negatively affected the growth, reproduction, and adaptation of species populations, as well as the quality and quantity of primary plant materials supplied to pharmaceutical markets. Despite these increasing challenges, little is known about effective strategies to prevent or lessen these impacts, especially for vulnerable species collected from the wild or harvested from traditional production systems. Therefore, urgent strategies to conserve and augment plant populations are needed. This study introduces a new framework that incorporates the main sustainability factors to better understand and address species’ vulnerability, helping to reduce the effects of climate change. The framework’s usefulness was tested through seven case studies of vulnerable species (i.e., Aquilaria malaccensis Lam., Boswellia sacra Flück., Crocus sativus L., Panax quinquefolius L., Pilocarpus microphyllus Stapf ex Wardlew., Rhodiola rosea L., and Warburgia salutaris (G.Bertol.) Chiov.) from major biogeographic regions, all widely used as medicinal plants. These species present various challenges to their sustainability, impacting their current and future status both locally and globally. Their economic significance, combined with growing demand and risks of overexploitation, is also a critical concern. The proposed framework for the sustainability of medicinal and other high-value plant-based products in the phytopharmaceutical industry highlights strategies that promote conservation and sustainable resource use. It can also be adapted for other vulnerable species that require immediate attention.
Keywords: climate change, conservation strategies, ecosystem factors, endangered medicinal plants, ethnopharmacology, key sustainability indicators, sustainable practices, traditional medicine.

 
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