Mexico's Dry Forests May Yield New Medicines

By Katiana Murillo

MEXICO CITY, Mexico, September 25, 2002 (ENS) - For generations, the dry forests of San Luis Potosí state in northern Mexico have provided residents with medicinal plants, including "cabezona," (Grindelia palmeri) used to treat inflammations, and "flor de acocotillo" (Prionosciadium watsoni), sure to soothe a stomach ache.

Working with local communities, scientists with the Botanical Garden at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Arizona, and the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group are testing the abundant flora of San Luis Potosí to see if they might be the basis of promising new drugs or natural herbicides.

Robert Bye is director of the Botanical Garden at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. (Photo courtesy ICGB)

"The University is not going to share information about the potential commercial use [of the plants] without first consulting with the communities," Bye explains.

The researchers are abiding by a confidentiality clause that forbids publication of any information about a plant's possible economic value. For one thing, Bye notes, "You can't work with companies when the scientific information already has been revealed in a publication. They aren't interested then and prefer to publish themselves."

He believes it is important that the scientists not publish scientific articles that might give others a chance to establish a patent based on the information, unless the communities also receive benefits.

The San Luis Potosí project is part of a larger initiative called the Bioactive Agents of Arid Zone Plants of Latin America, which is also underway in Argentina and Chile, and involves universities, research institutions, and local communities, as well as the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group (IGCB).

Grindelia palmeri, an anti-inflammatory herb (Photo courtesy New York Botannical Garden)

Bye says that the project will not appropriate information, since researchers are not working with traditional healers, but rather are leaning on popular and widespread knowledge.

"The project aims to implement the Convention on Biological Diversity," he says. "We are focusing on conservation and how we can use it and share its benefits."

The Convention on Biological Diversity was drafted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and has since been signed by 168 nations. Signatories pledge to conserve biodiversity and equitably share benefits from commerical uses of genetic resources. The convention, which recognizes the right of countries to regulate access to biodiversity, has been not been ratified by the United States. Mexico ratified it in 1993.

In San Luis Potosí, researchers have been collecting and testing plants, known as bioprospecting, for three years, but have yet to uncover a potential wonder drug. Scientists believe that bioprospecting requires at least a decade or two, plus a good deal of luck, before a plant with commercial promise is found.

Researchers today have fewer plants to test in San Luis Potosí than just a few decades ago. Many plant species have vanished from the region, victims of overharvesting and habitat damage caused by extraction of other products of value to people, particularly firewood, lime, and wood for carbon.

Cosmos atrosanguineus or chocolate flower (Photo courtesy PGA)

In addition to the bioprospecting project, Mexico's Autonomous University is working with 200 villagers who have concessions within the Sierra de Alvarez protected area, helping them improve propagation of the medicinal plants they commonly collect and sell.

According to project technician Myrna Mendoza, about 60 students and 35 women in the village of San Francisco are receiving training in how to sustainably harvest medicinal plants and convert them into products, such as teas and soaps, that they can sell locally at higher prices than the dried plants alone can fetch.

Funds from the Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation support this project, whose goal, Mendoza notes, is to ensure the sustainable use of medicinal plants, so that an ancient tradition can continue.

{Published in cooperation with the Rainforest Alliance}