Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants: Towards a Knowledge Commons for Community Health Security
How do we conserve, connect and share India’s rich medicinal plant heritage in a way that enables it to grow, evolve and benefit community health?
India has rich cultural traditions and knowledge related to the use of medicinal plants found across its diverse ecosystems for human, animal and plant health. This knowledge, developed through centuries of close interactions between communities and nature, has formed the backbone of India’s traditional wellness systems. The remarkable diversity of medicinal plants known and used across the country reflects the depth and richness of this knowledge, spanning local health traditions, classical systems of medicine, and contemporary applications.
The Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants is an initiative to bring together this diverse body of knowledge into an accessible, curated and evolving knowledge commons. The portal integrates botanical knowledge of medicinal plants with traditional knowledge, formulations, uses and contemporary scientific insights, connecting diverse knowledge systems into a shared and evolving resource. By enabling the discovery, curation and sharing of information related to medicinal plants, their properties, distributions and applications, the portal aims to contribute towards the conservation as well as active use of traditional knowledge by wider sections of the society and strengthening community health security.
The platform :
The first phase of development of the Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants focused on establishing the core digital infrastructure required to create a robust and extensible knowledge platform. A structured data warehouse, supported by search and access APIs, and an interactive user interface for querying, exploring and visualising the data have been developed as the foundation of the portal. This effort has been led by the Metastring Foundation in collaboration with The University of Tran-Disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology (TDU) as part of the overall effort by the Biodiversity Collaborative.
The Beta version of the portal has been seeded with a carefully curated dataset of medicinal plant resources researched and compiled by TDU. Considerable effort has gone into structuring, validating and harmonising diverse sources of information to create an integrated knowledge base. The current dataset includes:
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6120 accepted names of medicinal plant species, along with their taxonomic classifications, botanical characteristics, common names and synonyms.
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684 Ayurvedic drugs, including their correlations with specific medicinal plant species, Ayurvedic properties and associated information such as common names across different languages.
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1529 Ayurvedic formulations, detailing the constituent drugs, their Ayurvedic properties and their documented uses in the treatment of diseases.
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2800 verified images, curated and linked to plant species, including images from the digital herbarium maintained by TDU.
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It also contains information about the distribution, trade status, conservation status, associated local health traditions and references and books about medicinal plants.
The data underlying the portal has been compiled from multiple authoritative sources, including the Indian Medicinal Plants Database (IMPLAD), Medicinal Plants of India, the Clinically Important Plants of Ayurveda (CIPA) database developed by TDU, Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India publications, and botanical reference resources from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom.
The process of developing the knowledge base involved extensive curation and expert validation. Ayurveda Vaidyas and domain specialists from TDU contributed to the compilation and review of traditional medicine data, while scientific names and taxonomic information were harmonised with reference to the authoritative botanical nomenclature maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This harmonisation enables integration of traditional knowledge with contemporary scientific frameworks and provides a reliable foundation for future expansion of the portal.
Enabling Collaboration and Knowledge Exchange:
The Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants has been conceived as a shared knowledge resource for the diverse communities that contribute to, depend upon and advance India’s medicinal plant heritage. By bringing together dispersed knowledge from classical literature, local health traditions and contemporary scientific sources, it creates opportunities for collaboration across disciplines and institutions while enabling knowledge to be curated, enriched, shared and used.
For local communities—including farmers, pastoralists and animal husbandry practitioners—the portal provides access to reliable information on medicinal plants, their uses, geographical distribution and local health resources.
Traditional health practitioners can both contribute to and benefit from a curated knowledge base that documents medicinal plant knowledge while recognising prior art and helping safeguard intellectual property associated with traditional knowledge.
The portal enables knowledge-holding institutions and domain experts to curate, validate and maintain authoritative datasets in their areas of expertise.
Researchers, educators and students gain access to an integrated and continuously evolving knowledge resource that supports research, teaching and learning.
Government departments working in health, AYUSH, veterinary sciences, biodiversity and agriculture, together with community-based organisations, can leverage the portal to strengthen conservation efforts, public health initiatives and the sustainable use of medicinal plant resources.
By bringing together communities, practitioners, researchers, policymakers and institutions around a shared body of knowledge, the Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants seeks to foster a collaborative ecosystem in which medicinal plant knowledge can be preserved, researched, enriched and applied for the benefit of society.
Future Directions
The Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants is envisioned as an evolving knowledge commons that grows through participation and collaboration. Future phases will focus on making the portal more inclusive, interactive, engaging and accessible while expanding and deepening the breadth and depth of knowledge it brings together.
Planned development includes multilingual and voice-based interfaces, including access through conversational tools such as WhatsApp, enabling wider participation in the discovery and contribution of knowledge. A Local Health Traditions module will help document and preserve the rich diversity of folk knowledge held by healers and communities across India. Interactive interfaces will enable practitioners, organisations and knowledge holders to contribute, curate and enrich the resource, while geographical search, visualisation tools and AI-powered natural language interfaces will enable deeper and more intuitive exploration of the knowledge base.
A key principle guiding the evolution of the portal has been to ensure the appropriate recognition and attribution for knowledge contributors. By enabling individuals and organisations to share their expertise while receiving due acknowledgement, the portal aims to foster a culture of trust, collaboration and responsible knowledge stewardship.
A Call to Participate
The Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants will grow through the participation of knowledge holders, practitioners, researchers, organisations, communities as well as the general public.
If you are a traditional healer or knowledge holder, we invite you to contribute to documenting and sharing this knowledge while ensuring appropriate recognition, attribution and protection of your Intellectual Property Rights as applicable.
If you work in health, biodiversity, conservation, sustainable livelihoods or research, we invite you to partner with us in enriching this shared resource.
Explore the portal, share your feedback, spread the word and join us in building a living knowledge commons for medicinal plant knowledge and community health security
Toward a Healthier, Sustainable Future
The Citizens’ Portal is part of a growing family of open platforms from the Biodiversity Collaborative, TDU and Metastring Foundation — including AyurAhaar (on traditional food), TradedMedicinalPlants and Rasashastra (on metals and minerals in Ayurveda). Together, these form an interconnected ecosystem that links food, medicine, environment, and health.
By weaving together traditional knowledge and modern science, the portal aims to not just preserve knowledge — but also spark new innovations in preventive healthcare, nutrition, biodiversity conservation, and livelihood security.
Visit https://cpmp.tdu.edu.in and explore the Citizens’ Portal of Medicinal Plants —
a living, growing knowledge bank for India’s healing heritage.