Suchergebnisse

It has been unequivocally established that medicinal plants and associated knowledge play a significant role in the general welfare of the upland communities of Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), Bangladesh. Notwithstanding the recognition, however, organised research on indigenous medicinal plants and knowledge has been strikingly limited. This local wisdom is fast eroding for such reasons as biotic interference, shrinking land resource base, deforestation, insufficient support from the government and public policies, and lack of appropriate management and institutional structure. In this context, this article, drawing on an empirical fieldwork, sheds some lights on the indigenous medicinal plants and associated practices in six selected locations of CHT. After a general introduction, the second section summaries selected key literature on the subject. The third section presents some observation on the medicinal plant resources in the study areas, while the next section introduces the practice of traditional healers or Baidyas together with their problems. The concluding section furnishes the following clues on improvement: (a) systematic documentation and recording of the existing medicinal plants; (b) organised motivational and awareness raising campaign regarding medicinal plants and their benefits; (c) establishment of experimental propagation nurseries; (d) research support for proper documentation and dissemination of the knowledge on medicinal plants and associated folk and herbal treatment methods; (e) utilisation of the local press, media and folk cultural practices as community-based extension and dissemination media to highlight the importance of medicinal plants and knowledge; (f) development of a network or platform to bring the Baidyas together by utilizing the community-based organisations.

1. Legal and policy issues sustaining conservation and livelihood through non-wood forest products: A global perspective -- 2. Traditional ecological knowledge in non-wood forest products management and biodiversity conservation: A focus on Chittagong Hill Tracts -- 3. Historical and contemporary reflections on non-wood forest products -- 4. Non-wood forest product of the Sundarbans, Bangladesh: the context of management, conservation and livelihood -- 5. Role of non-wood forest products in Bhutan's quest for Gross National Happiness: An overview. 6. Non-wood forest products and agroforestry of Sri Lanka: Status, challenges and way forward -- 7. Consumption and marketing pattern of non-wood forest products in a rapidly changing world: Insights from north-east Bangladesh -- 8. Initiatives to enhance sustainability and productivity of bamboo in the Philippines -- 9. Non-wood products of Malaysian mangrove: contribution to livelihood and conservation -- 10. Plants in the Tribal life of Arunachal Pradesh with Special Reference to Tangsa Community, India.

Biodiversity has become an issue of global anxiety over the past decades due to its rapid decline worldwide. Bangladesh as one of the most densely populated countries in the world is no more exception. The country, although, was once very rich in biodiversity, during the last few decades as a consequence of the rapid reduction in forest area, urbanisation, habitat modification, unsustainable natural resources use and collection and overall climate change it has decreased alarmingly. Of late, the government, as a signatory of various regional and international conservation treaties, has taken various initiatives to improve country's dwindling biodiversity. This paper reviews the present situation of biodiversity in Bangladesh, management trends and major causes of biodiversity loss. A separate statutory body is fundamental to ensure conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits arisen from biodiversity in the country.

Ebolaviruses and marburgviruses, members of the family Filoviridae, are known to cause fatal diseases often associated with hemorrhagic fever. Recent outbreaks of Ebola virus disease in West African countries and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have made clear the urgent need for the development of therapeutics and vaccines against filoviruses. Using replication-incompetent vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) pseudotyped with the Ebola virus (EBOV) envelope glycopmtein (GP), we screened a chemical compound library to obtain new drug candidates that inhibit filoviral entry into target cells. We discovered a biaryl sulfonamide derivative that suppressed in vitro infection mediated by GPs derived from all known human-pathogenic filoviruses. To determine the inhibitory mechanism of the compound, we monitored each entry step (attachment, internalization, and membrane fusion) using lipophilic tracer-labeled ebolavirus-like particles and found that the compound efficiently blocked fusion between the viral envelope and the endosomal membrane during cellular entry. However, the compound did not block the interaction of GP with the Niemann-Pick Cl protein, which is believed to be the receptor of filoviruses. Using replication-competent VSVs pseudotyped with EBOV GP, we selected escape mutants and identified two EBOV GP amino acid residues (positions 47 and 66) important for the interaction with this compound. Interestingly, these amino acid residues were located at the base region of the GP trimer, suggesting that the compound might interfere with the GP conformational change required for membrane fusion. These results suggest that this biaryl sulfonamide derivative is a novel fusion inhibitor and a possible drug candidate for the development of a pan-filovirus therapeutic.