DOCUMENTATION, EFFECTIVITY AND IMPORTANCE IN FORESTRY OF MEDICINAL-PLANTS FROM SABAH, MALAYSIA

Alternatives to the current forms of forest management in the tropics are urgently required. One focus are non-timber forest products (ntfps ), which may yield additional uses and income to local people. A group of ntfps are medicinal plants; which were documented ethnobotanically in 1990 in the community of Rompon near Mount Kinabalu/Sabah/Malaysia and evaluated for their possible pharmacological effects using a non- experimental method. Such an evaluation is a necessary prerequisite be fore the wider use of medicinal plants can be recommended. A total of 106 medicinal plants with 120 applications were documented. Most of th e plants are used in the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders, foll owed by the treatment of skin diseases, respiratory diseases, wounds, diseases associated with fever, female disorders, diseases of eyes and others. The ethnopharmacological rating is based on ethnobotanical, p hytochemical and pharmacological information available on the various plants in the scientific literature. It is assumed that the more infor mation validates the popular use of a single plant the more likely it is to be effective in treating a certain illness. Five levels of valid ity were established (0 - ineffective; 1 - only ethnobotanical informa tion from other areas validates the use; 2 - additional phytochemical or pharmacological data validate the use, 3 - detailed phytochemical/p harmacological data validate the use, E - not evaluated because of ext ernal application). Forty-one percent of the plants are effective at l evel ''1'', 18% are effective at level ''2'' and 6% are effective at l evel ''3''. 35% of the plants could - due to a lack of information or their external application - not be validated. Accordingly, 65% of the plants are possibly or probably effective.