Willingness of herbal medicine practitioners and herbs vendors to contribute financially to conservation of medicinal plants in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

The study evaluated the willingness of Herbal Medicine Practitioners (HMPs) and Herb Vendors (HVs) in Ibadan, Nigeria to contribute financially to medicinal plants conservation projects. Data was collected using structured questionnaires administered on 124 HMPs and 83 HVs randomly selected from fourteen herbal associations and marketers respectively. Results showed that 79.03%of all HMPs were males and 20.97% females while 83.13% of HVs were females and 16.87% males. All the HMPs and 97.59% of HVs were willing to contribute financially and provide useful information to conservation projects. Majority (54.84%) of the interviewed HMPs were willing to contribute between N500 - N1500 annually while most of the HVs (51.8%) were willing to contribute between N201 - N500 annually. Lack of financial power and land were identified as major constraints to holding private gardens. A total of 38 commonly used medicinal plant species was identified in the existing small scale private gardens of HMPs. There is need to organise the HMPs and HVs into formidable cooperative societies for easy access to fund and institute awareness campaign on the need for conservation of important local medicinal plants if the health for all dream is to be achieved.