Spontaneous medicinal plants: Uti sed non abuti! A case study – Mureş county

: Romania’s natural resources are currently subjected to aggressive and barely controlled exploitation. These resources include medicinal plants from the spontaneous flora, which are much more in demand and appreciated on the foreign market than those derived from cultivation. Having information available regarding commercial societies (S.C.) and physical persons (P.P.) whose sphere of activity also comprises this resource, we wish to argue, taking Mureş county and the year 2017 as an example, the need for moderation in using all renewable as well as non-renewable resources. The requested quantities involved 109 spp. of spontaneous medicinal plants and amounted to 7,706 t (of which only 8 t required by P.P.), while the institutions authorized to perform adequate evaluation (AE) studies proposed 4,529 t and the NMC approved only 3,926 t . Certainly, S.C.s in particular are dissatisfied with the approved quantities and have recourse to a wide range of “strategies”. Even if in Mureş county pressure is not as high as in other counties in Transylvania, we believe that all organizations concerned with environmental conservation and protection should fight for the sustainable use ( uti sed non abuti ) of this important resource, which in most cases is subjected to other pressures in addition to those related to harvesting and export as raw material.