Preliminary Assessment on the Conservation Status of Canadian Medicinal Plants

The objective of the current study was to provide a preliminary assessment on the conservation status of Canadian medicinal plants in order to help guide future efforts to protect biocultural diversity in Canada. Using data provided from the Native American Ethnobotany Database (http://naeb.brit.org/), United States Department of Agriculture (https://plants.usda.gov) and Natureserve (http://explorer.natureserve.org/), a comprehensive assessment on the conservation status and distribution of Canadian medicinal plants was performed. Using this approach 1446 medicinal plants were identified in Canada, with the greatest number being located in Ontario (n = 1042), British Columbia (n = 882), and Quebec (n = 854). Of these, 54% had a Natureserve ranking as secure (S5), while 17% were currently unranked (SNA, SNR). The number of species ranked by Natureserve varied by province, with over 93% and 84% of medicinal species located in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut having not been assessed (SNA, SNR, SU) respectively. While the above is a good start to understanding the distribution and vulnerability of Canadian medicinal plants and to prioritize specific species/ecosystems for future monitoring, these databases do not fully reflect Canadian specific biodiversity information. Thus, greater effort is needed in the future to reconcile ethnobotanical, species distribution and conservation information for Canadian species within one place, as there is currently no centralized system to monitor the distribution and conservation status of medicinal flora.