India has 15 Agroclimatic zones and 17000-18000 species of flowering plants of which 6000-7000 are estimated to have medicinal usage in folk and documented systems of medicine, like Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani and Homoeopathy. About 960 species of medicinal plants are estimated to be in trade of which 178 species have annual consumption levels in excess of 100 metric tones.Medicinal plants are not only a major resource base for the traditional medicine & herbal industry but also provide livelihood and health security to a large segment of Indian population.

With a primary mandate of coordinating all matters relating to Medicinal Plants and support policies and programmes for conservation, cultivation, trade & export of Medicinal Plants, The State Medicinal Plants Board- Goa(SMPB-Goa) was constituted in year 2003. State Medicinal Plants Board- Goa(SMPB-Goa) provides for promotional activities like resource documentation in-situ conservation, research and development, ex-situ conservation of rare and endangered species, value addition, warehousing, capacity building and training of primary collectors and forest dwellers in good collection and sustainable and harvesting practices etc. In view of the increasing demands of herbal products, it is necessary that the primary production of medicinal plants is augmented and the entire process of collection, processing, storage, trading and marketing is made more efficient.

Very often the objectives of biodiversity conservation do not allow commercial harvesting of Medicinal Plants. There are 7 Protected Areas have been declared in the state(1 National Park & 6 Sanctuaries). Thus with the ongoing efforts of biodiversity and wildlife conservation, the natural habitat for medicinal plants may expand but the actual commercial harvesting of medicinal plants from such areas would get shrunk. Cultivation of medicinal plants over non-conservation area such as private land, community land, and waste land will only solve problem of availability of raw material to meet the market demand in future.