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While the contributions that plants make to modern pharmacy are clear, there is little 

 acknowledgment, within the society as a whole, of what these plants can contribute when used 

 as traditional herbal medicines. Virtually every nation worldwide, with the exception of the 

 United States and Canada, acknowledges the immense value medicinal plants contribute to 

 health care. Most European and all Asian countries have mechanisms by which the benefits of 

 traditional herbal medicines can be used within the public health care system. Not only are 

 these traditional medicines openly embraced, in many cases they are reimbursed under the 

 national insurance programs. 



For the past two decades, the World Health Organization has stated that the majority of 

 the world's population continues to rely on traditional herbal medicines as a primary source of 

 medicine. In 1992, WHO published a Guidelines For The Assessment of Herbal Medicines 

 which is a document that addresses the importance, as well as ways of integrating herbal 

 medicines into the fabric of a nation's health care delivery system. In this document they state: 



"The success of any health system depends on the ready availability and use of suitable 

 drugs on a sustainable basis. Medicinal plants have always played a key role in world 

 health. ..They offer local populations and others immediate access to safe and effective 

 products for use in the treatment of illness through self-medication. Only a fraction of 

 the world's plants have been studied, yet humankind has already reaped enormous 

 benefits. Perhaps the most important role for WHO is to ensure that traditional plant 

 remedies are neither accepted outright nor blankly rejected, but rather examined 

 critically and with an open mind." 



Tantamount to this, in another similar action, the WHO in conjunction with other 

 plant conservation groups met in Chiang Mai, Thailand for the International Consultation on 

 Conservation of Medicinal Plants. The focus of this conference was to re-affirm the important 

 contributions that medicinal plants provide in helping WHO achieve its goal of "Health for All 

 by the Year 2000" A World Conservation Strategy was established with the following 

 proclamation. 



