Jakarta - Indonesia, the largest archipelagic country, has a vast variety of herbal plants, spawning about 40,000 traditional medicines.
The 40,000 odd traditional medicines were presented by president director of herbal medicine maker PT Sido Muncul, Irwan Hidayat, to 200 physicians at a health seminar held in Jakarta, on Saturday.
Nearly 50 percent of the total herbal medicines were found in Kalimantan forests and the rest from other regions in Indonesia, Antara news agency Sunday quoted Hidayat as saying.
Many plants used for the medicines are now on the brink of extinction due to large-scale legal and illegal logging in the country over the past few years, he said.
"We are very concerned about this condition. Fewer Indonesian citizens seriously care about the survival of medicinal plants currently on the brink of extinction," he said.
Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com (June 22, 2008)