Champua: Champua subdivision, known for its natural resources, rich mineral deposits and a wide varieties of medicinal plants, is gradually losing out on its medicinal plant cover due to excessive mining and deforestation, a report said.
According to reports, Kalikaprasad, Sunaposi, Kainta and Mukundpur forests of the Champua region earlier contained several rare and valuable medicinal plants, which got destroyed over time.
Forest fire also has been a major threat to the survival of medicinal plants. Manmade occurrences of forest fire have destroyed several plants like Mahakal, Bhringaraj, Bhuin Amla, Khandakhai, Pedipedika, Varun, Ashok, Shatabari, Harida, Amla and many more.
Absence of revival of the lost forest cover and massive deforestation in this region have resulted in taking out the traditional occupation of ayurvedic medicine practitioners, who were curing several chronic ailments by collecting rare medicinal plants from the region.
As a gift of nature, the administration of such ayurvedic medicines was quite popular throughout the state. The practitioners here usually collect shrub stems, leaves, flowers and plant roots, for preparing their medicines to treat diseases like jaundice, orthopaedics, rheumatism, digestive disorders, asthma and many others.
Local practitioners namely Netrananda Maharana, Abdul Rehman and Ramakanta Pradhan have expressed their deep concern over this growing menace. The state government should promote revival of lost forests in Champua region, they urged.