Biological and economical aspects of utilization and exploitation of wild growing medicinal plants in Middle- and South Europe

Taking into consideration the traditions and the recent political and economical changes of the last decade of Europe, countries can be classified into three distinct groups according to their activity related to the production and consumption of medicinal and aromatic plants: a) countries characterised by the import, mainly, b) countries characterised by both export and import of raw material, c) countries characterised by export orientation. It is well known that Middle- and South European regions - including Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Albania, Romania and the former Yugoslavia - belong to the third group, traditionally. About 90-98% of their medicinal plant export is orientated to European region, especially to Germany. For instance 322.0 tomes of Salvia drug is produced by the above-mentioned countries, which is as much as 93.3% of European and 85.1% of the total world production. The situation about the Tilia flower is much similar: 85.5% of European and 53.2% of the total world production is done by the region. Analysing the export-import data of medicinal and aromatic plant drugs it is a difficult task to identify, either the plant material comes from wild, from cultivation or both of them. It is obvious that considerable amount of medicinal and aromatic plant drugs, comes from indigenous sources even nowadays (Crataegus spp., Rosa spp., Hedera helix, Juniperus communis, etc.). However, many other species (Anethum graveolens, Carum carvi, Coriandrum sativum, Foeniculum vulgare, Lavandula officinalis, Mentha piperita etc.) are produced in agrarian-systems exceptionally, because of different biological and ecological reasons. Both the cultivation and collection of medicinal plants have many advantageous features from production and utilisation point of view. Introducing appropriate biological and economical regulations, Middle- and South European region could be also a large supplier of the medicinal and aromatic plant drugs in the future.