Conservationist & Ethnobotanist with 28 years of experience in medicinal plant conservation, community awareness and education. Ethnobotany, documentation and assessment of Local Health traditions.

Key member in the implementation of a National Program on Promoting Conservation of Medicinal Plants and Traditional Knowledge for Enhancing Health & Livelihood Security and National Project Manager for the GOI –UNDP – GEF medicinal plants project on mainstreaming conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plant diversity.

Faculty member in training and certifying over 300 village botanists across the country. He was also part of conducting School program and teacher’s training for more than 1000 government school students and 800 private school students on Biodiversity conservation.

Facilitated in conducting Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritization Workshops

In charge as an Associate Professor and Management of the M. Sc. Conservation Future program at TDU and guides M. Sc. Research and Ph.D. programs.

Facilitates in planning of Preparation of People’s Biodiversity Registers and Training of BMC members across India.

Part of National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being-Preparatory Phase Project-Under the Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Advisory Council

Ongoing Projects / Research

Supervision: 3 Ph.D. and 3 M.Sc. Research students

Conduct of Conservation related part of RM course to the PH. D Organize and conduct Webinars on Ethno-botany and Conservation of medicinal plants

• 2016-2017, Medicinal Plant Board Tripura, “Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritization for the medicinal plants of Tripura”, Principal Investigator
• 2015-2017, Manipur Biodiversity Board, “Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritization for the medicinal plants of Manipur State”, Principal Investigator,
• 2017- 2021, Manipur Biodiversity Board, preparing model People Biodiversity Register for 10 divisions of Manipur state, Principal Investigator
• 2017-2018, Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest Produce (Trading and Development), Co-operative Federation Ltd, “Capacity Building Program for members of Chhattisgarh State Minor Forest Produce (Trading and Development), Co-operative Federation Ltd. On Good field Collection Practices and Value addition of Medicinal Plants”, Principal Investigator
• 2016- 2021, Infosys funding, “Orientation program on Plant Morphology, Biodiversity Conservation and Primary Health Care for selected students of Government High School of Rural Bangalore “Principal Investigator
• 2015-2021, Self-funding (through school), “Knowing the Unknown” Principal Investigator
• 2015-2019, State Medicinal Plant Board Chhattisgarh, “Implementation of projects for the State Medicinal Plants Board, Chhattisgarh”,
• - Village Botanists course for front-line staff of forest department, Principal Investigator.
• -Building capacity to prepare model People’s Biodiversity Registers for biodiversity management committee members, Principal Investigator
• -Preparation Peoples Biodiversity Registers and develop capacity for BMC members. (Karnataka, Manipur, and Chhattisgarh)
• 2018-2021, Assessment of Medicinal and Aromatic Plant species (including collection, usage, demand, markets, price trends & life cycle) focusing on landscapes in Sikkim, with special reference to RETs, Principal Investigator
• 2020-2021, National Mission on Biodiversity and Human Well-Being-Preparatory Phase Project-Under the Prime Minister’s Science Technology and Innovation Advisory Council of sub group – Medicinal Plants & Health Security
• 2020-2021, Conservation Assessment and Management Program for Ladakh- UNDP

Teaching Activities

INVITED LECTURES/SEMINARS

• September 1996, presented a paper titled” Threat Status Assessment of Native Medicinal Plants of Southern India” in the 5th International Society of Ethno-biology
• November 1998, presented a paper titled “Trade of Medicinal Plants in Southern India” in 6th International Congress of Ethno-biology at New Zealand, organised by International Conference on Ethno-biology
• July, 2000, External Evaluator for the project “BOTANICA’ at University of Leicester
• October, 2002, presented a paper titled “Medicinal Plant Conservation Park of Southern India – Ethno-medicinal Gardens – A Case Study conducted by 5th International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens at Sydney
• September, 2006 Presented a poster titled “Garden of Life” conducted by International Congress on Education in Botanic Gardens at Oxford”  
• February, 2008, attended as an expert to “Stake Holders Workshop on AYUSH interventions in Public Health’ at FRLHT, Bangalore, organized by Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India, New Delhi.
• February, 2014 Presented a paper titled “Role of Para-taxonomist in the management of Biodiversity of North Eastern India” National Conference on Conservation, Characterization & Cultivation of Medicinal Plants for Sustainable Utilization and Community Welfare, organized by KM Centre for Post-Gradate Studies, Govt. of Pondicherry and Resource Development of Medicinal Plants (SMP), New Delhi.                    April, 2016 Attended the 2nd International Conference on Quality in Prophetic Medicine held at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
• June, 2018 Presented a paper titled: Medicinal Plant Conservation” at Teachers Training Workshop on Biodiversity and its Conservation, organized by Regional Museum of Natural History, Mysore, Government of India, MoEF & CC in Collaboration with Universal Eco Foundation (UEF), Pondicherry
• April, 2019. Presented a paper on ‘Medicinal Plants and its Importance” in a “National Environmental Innovation Summit” organised by Tumkur University
• November, 2019, Attended the National Outreach for Awareness Generation on Urban Biodiversity organized by Wildlife Institute of India & ICLEI, South Asia.
• March, 2020. Presented a paper on Forest and Medicinal Plants, in Realizing the potential of India’s forest sector: role of innovative technology, finance and market mechanisms, organized by “The Nature Conservancy”.

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TRANSDISCIPLINARY HEALTH SCIENCS & TECHNOLOGY, BANGALORE, INDIA

• Environmental Studies
• Modern Conservation History and Bio-Ethics

UNDERGRADUATE ADD ON COURSES TAUGHT AT VIJAYA & MES College, BANGALORE, INDIA

• Ethno-Botany

POSTGRAUDATE COURESES TAUGHT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TRANSDISCIPLINARY HEALTH SCIENCS & TECHNOLOGY, BANGALORE, INDIA

• Principles of Ecology

Outreach Activities

1. One of the team members in preparing the inventory of Medicinal plants database with special reference to its Inventorying, correlating and fixing the botanical identity of medicinal plants used in Ayurveda.
2. Enabling NGos in establishment of ethno medicinal Gardens (ex-situ conservation)
3. External evaluator for the project “Traditional medicinal Plant for Primary Health Care” at Auroville Medicinal Plant Conservation Park” supported by DFID through CommWealth Human Ecology council – CHEC – March 2001.
4. Facilitated in establishing 50,000 Home Herbal Gardens (HHGs) in 5 states.
5. Facilitated in preparing 100 Community Knowledge Registers (CKRs) in 5 states.
6. Facilitated in Mainstreaming Traditional Medicine into Official Primary Health Care Program in 25 Primary Health Care Centres An independent team of experts who engaged for evaluating the project: Mainstreaming Conservation and Sustainable Use of Medicinal Plants, (GoI –UNDP- GEF) found the project progress as “highly satisfactory” and submitted the terminal evaluation report. The project management unit of this project was housed at FRLHT. Some of the key achievements of the project included development of the National level draft policy and strategy on conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants, revision of National Forest, Working Plan code with inclusion of medicinal plants, validation of 46 endemic and near endemic species by IUCN which were uploaded in their SIS system, creation of People’s Biodiversity Registers and Bio-cultural Community Protocols, development of Medicinal Plant Conservation Areas and Herbal Gardens, training and capacity building of State Forest Department, Biodiversity Management Committees, rural youth and women and dissemination of information and knowledge through more than 100 knowledge products and creating awareness on biodiversity conservation for school students.

Selected Publications

BOOKS

2018 Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritizationof Medicinal Plants of
Manipur, (with D.K. Ved, V. Anu, C.R. Jawahar and Deshworjit Singh Ningombam), The University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology, Bangalore (IBSN No-978-93-84208-15-8)


2016 Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritization of Medicinal Plants of
Tripura, (with D.K. Ved, V. Anu, D. Saha and K. Majumdar), Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore (IBSN No-978-93-84208-12-7)

2015 Conservation Assessment and Management Prioritization for Medicinal Plants of Nagaland, (with D.K. Ved, V. Anu, D. Saha and K. Ravikumar), Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore

1997 Plants in Ayurveda (A Compendium of Botanical and Sanskrit Names, Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore.


FIELD REPORTS

2018 Exploring the Urban Woods – Summer Nature Camp, (with. Amrita G., V. Anu, Santosh Sutar, M. Vrijulal, Chaturved Shet), Vol. 33, No 11, Zoo’s Print Communicating Science for Conservation, Magazine of Zoo Outreach Organization, Coimbatore, India.

MANUALS

2011 Village Botanist training manuals for 5 states (with G. Deepa), Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore, India

2012 Operational Guidelines for implementation of GEF project, (with K. Haridasan, Jagannatha Rao and G. Deepa), Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore, India

2007 Operational Guidelines for implementation of CCF-II project, (with Jagannatha Rao and G. A. Kinhal) Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore, India

1995 Inventory of Plants Used in Indian System of Medicine, Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Tradition, Bangalore, India



PUBLISHED PAPERS

2002 “Use of GIS in Medicinal Plants Conservation Parks, GIS Developent.net (with Vijay Barve, Deepa Thulasidasan)
1996 “Single Drug Therapy in Netraroga” Ancient Science of Life (with M.B. Gayathri, K. Sarbeswar and P.M. Unnikrishnan)

REPORTS

2002 Sustainable Harvesting, conservation, cultivation and marketing linkages for medicinal plants of Andhra Pradesh Community Forests Management Project for Andhra Pradesh Forests Department

Awards / Memberships

• Certificate of Recognition for the dedicated services for more than 15 years in Foundation for revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRLHT)
• Certificate of merit for cooperation, hard work and team sprit towards achieving c

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