Medicinal plants conservation is a broad group of activities which aims to prevent plants from becoming extinct. In the ancient Sri Lanka also had the conservation techniques.  They recorded in obscure ola (palm leaf)  or in the memory of elderly practitioners.

At the present days medicinal plants conservation done by three methods. They are;

 

1.      In – situ conservation.

2.      Ex – situ conservation.

3.      Information and institutional support.

 

In – situ conservation.

In situ or on site conservation involving maintaining genetic resources in their natural habitats. In Sri Lanka, establishing five medicinal plant conservation areas (MPCAs) in different ecological zones , as a part of, or adjacent to existing natural forests which are the home for some of the threatened species of medicinal plants. Those have been established in Bibile and Ritigala (dry zone), Rajawake and Naula (intermediate zone), and Kanneliya (wet zone), adjacent to natural forests which harbor medicinal plant species.

 Each site consisting of a medicinal plant garden, which will serve as a demonstration site, a medicinal plant-processing center for the use of communities, an ayurvedic dispensary, which is expected to mainly depend on preparations made by the communities, and an information center. When selecting the areas as the conservation of medicinal plants considering about Presence of the important species (and active collection), Human pressure (dependency), Habitat destruction.

 

Kanneliya rain forest

Ex – situ conservation.

 

Ex situ conservation involves conservation of biodiversity outside the native or natural habitat where the genetic variation is maintained away from its original location. In Sri Lanka ex situ conservation to a number of highly valued medicinal plant species and it done by cultivating the medicinal plants by promoting nurseries, home garden and plantation cultivation and supporting propagation and agronomic research. Some of ex situ conservational nurseries established in Bathgoda, Giradurukotte, Pattipola,Meegoda,Pinnaduwa, Valikamam area in Jaffna etc.

Cultivation of medicinal plants in homegarden in the MPCA is being encouraged and supported. And also some selective farmers have been trained in nursery practices, simple agronomic practices and in related areas.

 And some medicinal plant nurseries have been established mainly for holding collections of germplasm of important medicinal plant species and for providing mother plants to prospective nurserymen. Combination with the expansion of homegarden cultivation and commercial cultivation, arrangements have been made for providing marketing information and marketing outlets to enable the communities to obtain the best prices for their produce. As a complementary activity, research on the propagation and cultivation of selected medicinal plant species is being supported.

 

Information and institutional support.

 

Main information can be get from traditional medical system.

When conservation of medicinal plants some institutions  give huge contribution and support (ex- Bandaranayaike Memorial Ayurvedic Research Institute(BMARI), National Institute of Traditional Medicine(NITM), Department of .Agriculture, Forest Department..etc).

Those institutions help to; assist in joint forest management-access to the forest, awareness of the flora  in the locaitly, sharing ethnobotanical information and documenting in local language, developing propogation techniques(20 species), facilitating outgrower systems and purchasing … etc.