She wish to learn first hand about the medicinal plants

Kahoru Kanari has come all the way from Tokyo, Japan, to learn firsthand about the medicinal plants used in India and will never miss a chance to attend any conference or seminar on medicinal plants held anywhere across country. For the past five years she has been visiting India regularly just to study about the medicinal plants which are native to our land and climate, not found elsewhere.

Being a student of United Nation University, Tokyo she is pursuing Environmental Governance specializing in bio-diversity, where she wants to do an in depth study of the traditional medicinal plants grown in India, their sustainable use and conservation. Back home, she wants to apply this method and spread light over issues. She was in city on Thursday to take part in the workshop held on Medicinal Plants. Here are the excerpts:

“I was working for an NGO on sustainable use of Medicinal Plants. I got curious and wanted to study more on medicinal plants. In due course, I contacted Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, FRLHT, Bangalore and began my study on Indian Medicinal Plants.”

“Indian tradition and culture are quite different from ours, as such sustainable use of medicinal plants and their conservation also differ from that practiced in our country. With India being the birthplace of ancient Ayurveda, I was very much impressed observing people in villages still using medicinal plants as mentioned in the ancient texts of Ayurveda along with 'Naati' medicines consisting of local herbs.”

“It is interesting that people in India give prominence to traditional healing methods involving local medicinal plants and collect medicinal plants from the wild and they are of wide varieties. Though awareness about traditional medicines is equally high among Japanese, their collection from wild is less. I am putting in my efforts to introduce in Japan on how Indian people collect plants from the wild,” she quoted.

Kampo a traditional medicinal practice of the Japanese is quite famous among them just like the Ayurveda here which has been thoroughly studied and documented. But, we are not aware as to where the plants come from, she added.

'Sometime ago I had invited a couple of Japanese companies to India and explained to them the importance of the local medicinal plants. I have also visited sustainable growth of herbal plants at Madurai,' she added.