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$ 9 m spent annually on importing herbs available locally: Environment Ministry 

03 Oct 2021

  • Local growing programmes to be expanded to produce requirement domestically 
Experts have pointed out that although there are enough medicinal plants in Sri Lanka such as Aralu, Bulu, and Nelli used in Ayurvedic and indigenous medicine, the country spends around $ 9 million a year to import them from India, according to the Ministry of Environment.  These facts were revealed by experts at the meeting of the Presidential Task Force on Green Economy with Solutions to Climate Change held at the Ministry of Environment last week. Therefore, they suggested to the Presidential Task Force that a programme be launched to ensure that these plants can be grown in all parts of our country. Task Force Chairman and Minister of Environment Mahinda Amaraweera stated that under the National Tree Planting Programme implemented by the Ministry of Environment, a programme could be initiated to cultivate these trees in abundance in the forest areas, as well as on both sides of roads. He also pointed out that although there are medicinal plants such as Aralu and Bulu in almost all parts of the country at present, there is no programme in place to harvest these ingredients in a systematic manner.  “We do not need to import such local medicines from India. There are enough resources in the country but there is no formal program in this regard and such a programme could be initiated in consultation with the Ministry of Indigenous Medicine,” he said. It was noted that Nilgala Herbal Garden has a large number of such medicinal plants, and the Task Force will take steps to cultivate such plants in other forest areas as well. He also pointed out that one of the reasons for the damage to food crops by wild animals is the lack of enough fruit trees in the forests to feed them. Therefore, the Presidential Task Force could initiate a programme to plant more fruit trees such as Atamba and Valu Amba in the forests, the Minister said.


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