Livelihood and potential conservation roles of wild edible herbs.

Traditional communal area resources are mostly described as open access resources and are frequently associated with over-utilization and poor management of the natural resources therein. Yet it is those� unproductive and impoverished lands� that support and supply diverse sources of important biological resources from which local people benefit. Over 80% of poor rural households are known to depend on Wild Edible Herbs (WEHs) in Indian forest fringe areas. As a result, the daily usage of WEHs is a significant, yet underestimated component of livelihoods, biodiversity, land use and land cover. This underestimation results from the lack of monetization of the consumption of these resources at the household level, and the lack of formal markets, and hence they are not captured in national level accounting. However, they may account for a considerable proportion of the total biodiversity in natural and subsistence ecosystems.