History and prospects for the conservation and use of the wild Asian ginseng in Russia

Nowadays the resources of Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng C.A. Mey.) have become exhausted southward in Russian Far East and now the species is critically endangered. Till the 30ies of the 20-th century the Chinese were main ginseng gatherers and they also maintained its reproduction in the taiga. In the 30ies a state monopoly for ginseng was established and its production for export started to be planned. The population received about 5% of the export price bringing the plants to purchasing centers. About 30% of wild ginseng native habitats were destroyed because of forest clearing in the 1960-80ies. Those years the black ginseng market started to develop, private collecting and export exceeded the legal one in several times at that. In 1978 Panax ginseng was entered in the Red data book but the measures were inefficient. From 2000 the legal ginseng procurement stopped but in fact they continued and made out 1000-1500 kg per year. The article has suggested a complex for measures to ginseng reproduction. All Panax ginseng habitats should be assign for a long lease to collective natives, labor family contract hereditability is desirable. All holders must have corresponding certificates and all dealers must have licenses for root buyout and selling. Scientific and methodological management has to be realized in such forms as inventory of ginseng area, collecting of information about population state, regular monitoring of the populations, development of taiga ginseng growing. It ought to lay plantations for getting good seeds and seedlings. The Criminal Code and the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation should be corrected to make possible a rigorous repressing of ginseng contraband. The demand for wild ginseng remains higher, therefore Panax ginseng saving in its native area will promote the sustainable development of the south of Far East Region.