BANGALORE: In the past 5-6 years, officials from the Forest Departments of Karnataka and Maharashtra have arrested many people in Belgaum and some adjoining districts of the northern Western Ghats on charges of smuggling a foul-smelling poisonous wild shrub locally known as Gavada or Narki — the ‘stinking tree’. It is being smuggled abroad for some ‘exceptional’ qualities, they say.
It is known that its root, twigs and stem are used in anti-cancer medicines part of chemotherapy, each dose of which costs anywhere between Rs 1.5-2 lakh, but not much is known of the burgeoning international trade that is now worth at least $60 million (Rs 270 crore), as per conservative estimates.
The plant, Mappia foetida, better known as Nothapodytes foetida, is the most potent source of the anti-cancer drug Camptothecin (CPT), also known in the international market as the ‘dollar chemical’, which forms the base biomolecule for drugs used in cancer therapy. In short, no cancer vaccine in the world can be prepared without CPT, of which Gavada is presently the richest and the only viable natural source, with a 0.7 per cent content, “several times more than other known sources”, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. “CPT is the third most important alkaloid of the 21st century,” says Dr Ankur Patwardhan, HoD, Biodiversity, Garware College, Pune.
The plant is endemic to India and grows extensively in the Western Ghats, especially in the districts of Satara, Kolhapur and Pune in Maharashtra, and in Uttara Kannada, Shimoga and Belgaum districts in Karnataka and some parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
It is being smuggled out with the help of local mafia and international players. While Japanese companies were the first to procure the drug, pharma companies from Germany, France and US have shown keen “interest” in the plant ever since its stinking rich value was discovered.
“Due to the growing illegal trade, in Maharashtra, it (the plant) is endangered,” while “in Karnataka it is vulnerable,” Patwardhan said. “Being a wild species, at present whatever supply is there, it is from the forest land; sometimes even from protected areas like national parks and sanctuaries. Clandestine trade is on,” he added. There has been large scale uprooting of the plant over the past few years as a result of the illegal trade.
