ABSTRACT
Endangered Plants........................................................................................................... 520 14.5.7 Seed Banks in Botanical Gardens Established for International Seed Exchange ......... 521
14.6 Botanical Prospecting — Ethnobotanical Field Research........................................................... 522 14.7 The Concept of “Ranching” Wild
Vaccinium
Species with Superior Properties as a Nutraceutical and Potential Pharmaceutical ................................................................................ 528
14.8 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 532 References .............................................................................................................................................. 532
Far too much human-caused exploitation of fragile plant communities and ecosystems has been occurring in recent times at an accelerating pace. This is happening in tropical rain forests worldwide due to their destruction from mining, lumber, wood products, livestock grazing, and farming. In temperate regions, this is due to the clear-cutting of forests, collection of wood from trees and shrubs for fuel, overgrazing by livestock, mining, damming river systems, and urban sprawl. In arctic regions, it is the result of massive clear-cuts of boreal forests for pulpwood for paper manufacture, lumber, and wood products. The Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., has been doing a great job of documenting these calamities over the past two decades. Their prognosis is not good for the future regarding the Earth’s
natural resources. Humans, with their burgeoning populations, have been engaged in overly exploitive activities that squander natural products that occur in vast ecosystems. As a result, they are living way beyond the carrying capacity in many regions of the planet.
