Medicinal plant diversity and local healthcare among the people living in and around a conservation area of northern Bangladesh

An ethno-medicinal investigation was carried out to understand the medicinal plants (MPs) diversity and local healthcare practice among the people living in and around a conservation area of northern Bangladesh. Study was conducted by interviewing 103 households; through a series of intensive field visits during February to June, 2006. Study revealed that, the area is very rich in MPs and peoples living in and proximity of the conservation area relies traditionally on these plants for their primary health care purpose. During the study a total of 40 species were identified having medicinal or curative value, including 15 tree, 11 shrub, 11 herb and 3 climbers. Among the identified MPs, local people?s traditionally collected 60% species from the wild sources (i.e. from the conservation area) followed by cultivated (13%) and domestic (7%) sources. It was also observed that, local people used the identified MPs mostly for curing cold ailments followed by cough, cut and wounds, fever, dysentery, skin diseases and for other common ailments. Leaves were found to use heavily for medicinal preparations; other plant parts used to manufacture medicine were bark followed by fruit, root/rhizome, seed and whole plant.