Subtropical Medicinal Herb Cultivation in Jeju Island... A Big Step Toward 'Medicinal Herb Sovereignty'

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The national capability to produce pharmaceuticals and other products from various medicinal herbs is becoming more important than ever. According to the Nagoya Protocol adopted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in October 2010, countries that develop pharmaceuticals using medicinal herbs from provider countries must share monetary and non-monetary benefits, a kind of royalty, with the provider countries. The more species of medicinal herbs cultivated domestically, the lower the cost of developing pharmaceuticals.

When people think of medicinal herbs, they often imagine traditional Korean herbal medicine ingredients, but they are also widely used in modern pharmaceuticals. For example, the well-known antiviral drug ‘Tamiflu’ is derived from star anise, and the malaria treatment drug ‘Piramex’ was developed using the herb ‘Gaeddongsuk’ as a raw material. Medicinal herbs are also used not only as pharmaceutical ingredients but also in health functional foods and cosmetics. Because of this, countries around the world are focused on discovering and securing their own biological resources.

For this reason, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) opened ‘Saengyak Nuri,’ a complex cultural space to raise public awareness of the importance and preservation of medicinal herbs, in Jeju Island on the 28th. On the first floor, a medicinal herb specimen room was set up, exhibiting over 300 medicinal herbs listed in the Korean Pharmacopoeia. Visitors can see four medicinal herb specimens (Sain, Chodugu, Ganghwal, Maeg-a) from 1937 and endangered wild species such as pangolins and musk deer firsthand.

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In particular, due to global warming, Jeju Island is transforming into a subtropical climate. Considering that the average temperature from March to November last year was above 10 degrees Celsius, Jeju already falls under the subtropical climate category. The MFDS plans to raise ‘medicinal herb sovereignty’ by cultivating medicinal herbs that were previously only found in Southeast Asia at the MFDS National Medicinal Herb Resources Center Jeju Branch, where Saengyak Nuri is located. Among the three national medicinal herb resource centers, including the Jeju Center, the Okcheon Center (established in 1992) manages temperate medicinal herb resources, and the Yanggu Center (established in 2001) manages alpine medicinal herb resources. An MFDS official said, “Countries around the world are competing endlessly to secure their biological resources,” adding, “Among them, South Korea has now been able to secure medicinal herbs that grow in various climates.”

Saengyak Nuri Medicinal Herb Specimen Room

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