Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (MAPs) and Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) are inextricably linked to natural biodiversity. Nepal has been a treasure vault for MAPs. A large number of poor people in the rural areas have been generating off-farm employment opportunities through the collection and sale of MAPs. There are about 1500 botanical species of MAPs and NTFPs, which have been used as food, medicine, fiber, gum-resin, etc. Among them about 150 botanical species of MAPs are commercially important for rural economy. These species are reported from lowland Terai to high alpine pasture and are mostly harvested or produced by poor, rural households, and disproportionately by women in terms of more work load. Apart from agriculture, MAPs provide with the viable livelihood option for the marginalized rural communities and their huge economic potential is increasingly being recognized. Although Tenth National Five Year Plan of Nepal and several other policy papers clearly acknowledge the role of the MAPs for poverty alleviation, the problem has not been solved yet. The widespread poverty in Nepal, especially in hills and mountains, has led to increased risk of extinction of valuable MAPs that include a wide variety of bio-diversity.

The marketing system of MAPs which generates ultimate benefit to the community is not well established at present in Nepal. Lack of market to sell the raw materials not only increases the haphazard collection practices but also increases carelessness upon the resources management and conservation. The market prices of MAPs are highly fluctuating; in some occasion even collectors can?t sell their product at all due to low or non-existent price. This is due to the fact that, the marketing system is solely based upon the Indian traders and there is lack of macro-scale Ayurvedic pharmaceutical companies to utilize big volume of raw materials within the country. Thus the project proposed cultivation of indigenous as well as exotic MAPs in Gorkha region and develope sustainable market linkage between producers, gatherers and manufacturing company and replace the import of MAPs by producing from Gorkha region.