In Nepal, people harvest herbal remedies straight from the forests and mountains where they live. These herbs are part of Nepal’s centuries-old indigenous Ayurvedic healthcare system, which emphasizes disease prevention through proper diet and lifestyle.
Medicinal herbs are used both to boost immunity and to treat disease when it arises. But because these remedies have become increasingly popular around the world, Nepal’s native wild herbs are being depleted by over-harvesting. More and more of these irreplaceable herbs are endangered or on the brink of extinction. Moreover, because of the opaque and exploitative supply chain, the money from the harvest goes mostly to middlemen rather than to the harvesters themselves.
Healing Herbs Nepal is designed to transform an inequitable and environmentally degrading medicinal herb trade into one that:
- Protects Nepal’s endangered medicinal herbs by training herb collectors to farm herbs using organic and agroecological methods rather than picking them from their native habitat
- Elevates farmers out of poverty by training them in a new livelihood – sustainable herb production
- Protects farmers against exploitative industry practices by organizing farmers into cooperatives for collective bargaining and to cut middlemen out of the supply chain
- Provides training in holistic wellness programs (e.g. meditation, yoga, etc.) and financial and farm management.