Abstract

Medicinal plants are important natural goods for many different peoples, especially because of their use as herbal medicines resulting from the traditional knowledge emerged from the direct contact with nature. The great experience of regional, traditional communities on the management and use of plant resources available in their regions led different populations to create and use several medicines. Even though the scientific literature presents studies on the identification and acknowledgement of environmental services, important for the economy of local populations, as well as the preservation of their natural resources by retrieving a regional, popular knowledge, Brazilian biomes, especially Cerrado, a neotropical savanna, have an abundant flora diversity and are confronted with a land occupation scenario marked by the expansion of agricultural and live stocking activities, which threatens the maintenance of herbal medicines supply. In this context, this study introduces the case of the Grupo Espírita da Paz, a group that provides the cultivation, sustainable extraction and processing of medicinal plants by highlighting the value of traditional herbal medicines as informational resources for pharmacological bioprospection, thus favoring the conservation of biomes that offer genetic resources.

Key words: Herbal medicines for traditional use, Grupo Espírita da Paz, bioprospection, Brazilian tropical.