From abundance to endangerment to revival, Kachchh’s guggal comes a full circle
- September 26, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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From abundance to endangerment to revival, Kachchh’s guggal comes a full circle
Subject : Geography
Section: Economic Geography
Guggal plant:
- Guggal (Commiphorawightii), a native plant in Gujarat’s Kachchh district, has high medicinal value. However, its overexploitation has led it to be declared critically endangered by the IUCN.
MithoGuggal (Commiphorastocksiana):
- C. stocksiana is found only in the Kachchh region of Gujarat in India and like C. wightii, its oleo gum resin has high medicinal value.
- MithoGuggal (Commiphorastocksiana), a species from the same family, mainly found on the Zara-Zumara hills in Kachchh, is also endangered and has high medicinal value, and now awaits similar conservation attention.
A repository of medicinal goodness:
- The oleo-gum resin tapped from the stem of C. wightii ( Guggal) and its other counterpart (MithoGuggal) is used to make an Ayurvedic drug that is highly in demand in the herbal industry.
- Uses:Antiseptic,anti-inflammatory to reducing blood cholesterol, treating bone fracture, arthritis, rheumatism, skin disorder, urinary problems, and Parkinson’s disease.
- It is also used to glue the stones.
- The resin of these plants can be tapped after 7-8 years of plantation. And the plants die once the resin is being tapped.
- Critically endangered due to:
- Habitat loss and degradation, unregulated harvesting and tapping of oleo gum resin.
Conservation efforts:
- Conservation efforts by researchers and the government went full-swing to save the plant and Local farmers began to grow the guggal—both for economic benefit, as well as for community awareness and involvement in its conservation.
- Gujarat Institute of Desert Ecology (GUIDE) formed a nursery of guggal plants.
- The National Medicinal Plants Board and the forest division began a guggal plantation drive in 2018.
- A significant move in the conservation of these plant species has been an experiment by the University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU), Karnataka with GUIDE to develop a tapping technique, such that the plant does not perish after its resin has been tapped.