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Green is good: Workers tend their family’s herbal market garden in Sa Pa. Small growers play a key role in traditional medicine. — VNA/VNS Photo Dinh Hue

HA NOI — Few users of traditional herbal medicines are aware of the quality control issues involved with these drugs, a meeting of environmentalists was told last Wednesday.

The Ha Noi-held meeting, organised by the Viet Nam Forum of Environmental Journalists and the Viet Nam Association for Medicinal Plants, informed participants that some farmers have begun to use sulphur and other toxic chemicals to grow, process, and preserve herbal products.

According to Do Quyen from the University of Pharmacy and Nguyen Huy Van from the Traditional Pharmaceutical Company, the use of chemicals and pesticides in herbal plantations is equally as dangerous as in the commercial fruit and vegetable sectors.

Another major problem of the traditional herbal medicine industry is the possibility of extinction for many plant species.

Many wild plants are being exploited to the edge of extinction, with almost no plans for re-generation.

While the State has established corporations to manage the cultivation, production and preservation of coffee and sugar cane crops, there is no such organisation to ensure the protection of medicinal plants.

Viet Nam has 3,200 higher and lower plant species that can potentially be used to produce medicine. Approximately 450 species are currently being used to treat 60 diseases.

Also to celebrate World Environmental Day, the World Wildlife Fund and the Da Nang Forest Rangers’ Department co-organised a meeting to discuss the serious decline in bio-diversity in the central Truong Son mountain range.

Participants heard that forests, stretching from Quang Tri to Binh Dinh, Gia Lai and Kon Tum provinces, have been divided into smaller administrative areas, threatening animals and plants as well as ecological systems in the area.

Moreover, attention has not yet been paid to protecting rare species of flora and fauna, as poaching and illegal logging are continuing unabated.

The workshop focused on measures to help preserve the Ba Na-Nui Chua and Son Tra Peninsula nature reserves, the southern Hai Van environmental protection and landscape area, as well as watershed forests and State-owned forest farms around Da Nang. — VNS