Plants and fungi have provided, or inspired, key pharmaceuticals for global health challenges, including cancer, heart disease, dementia, and malaria, and are valued as traditional medicines worldwide. Global demand for medicinal plants and fungi has threatened certain species, contributing to biodiversity loss and depletion of natural resources that are important for the health of humanity. We consider the evolving role of plants and fungi in global healthcare as new challenges to human health and to biodiversity arise. We present current and emerging scientific approaches, to uncover and preserve nature‐based health solutions for the future, through harmonization with biodiversity conservation strategies.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.