Medicinal plants of Kakamega forests and their consistency applications: Opportunities and Challenges to-date

Abstract

Biodiversity is fundamental and foundation to offering plant germplasmfor scientific investigations in the provision of useful biodata and biomedical data, both to benefit the flora and fauna. Studies were undertaken in the Kakamega forest, rich in diverse species of immense and unmeasurable resource at different levels of applications, for instance, alternative medicine provision and novel research studies in medicine to configure active biomedical potency of the plant species for disease and pests management.However, observations indicate urgent and remedial proactive measures should be put in place to attain the prime objective of the alternative medicine studies. These include but not limited to, protect and conserve the current biodiversity, provide relevant biomedical and floristic biodata (both at regional and national levels) though the creation of botanical gardens with valid and prospective specifications for posterity measures like the conventional and non-conventional models designed along the Indian approach models of testing the efficacy of the drug after processing, whether in pure or crude form to ensure its vitality. Due to less attention drawn to the assessment of plant diversity in the reserve Kakamega forest and its environ studies were initiated to add value to similar studies in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR), India.Simple random sampling was used where the Questionnaire was administered to the traditional medical practitioners. Over two hundred and fifty plant species of economic importance, belonging to 71 families and 90 genera have been reported. Among the useful species, several species had multiple uses and rarely a species had single utility. The species included rareendangered e.g. Clerodendrum myricoides, Terminalia brownie, Warbugia salutaris, Bixia orellana (Rare); Croton macrostachyus, Dioscorea alata (Vulnerable, 15 species). These and other species were categorized as critically Endangered (15 spp.); andEndangered (25 spp.), following criteria of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).During the studies, limitations abound the processing phase were observed in several ways. These included lack of infrastructure both in terms of personnel and research capacity, financial support-related items, patent-related regulations, availability and the high cost of the equipment, maintenance of the equipment, lack of technical staff, preparedness to protect and use wisely the biodiversity, procedure of processing of the drug from plant species is time-consuming, tedious and very expensive. Even basic research laboratories of international standards is hardly available; and policies for adopting alternative medicine are in their primordial phases. Also, limitations arise from the approval for manufacturing of the drug once potent compound is identified and confirmed. These limitations notwithstanding, the processed ‘medicinal’ material finds its way onto the market for disease management, for example, the ‘Makini herbal clinic’, ‘Murugu herbal clinic’ in east Africa.