Administrative conservation system of plant and animal species, as well as of original medicinal plants, is justified in Republic of Serbia in three basic aspects:

• Law regulation, which considers bringing law acts that are protecting some species, issuing rules of their protection and limiting conditions of their using. The law regulative also considers bringing universal acts that are defining general country strategy of acting with natural resources, and bringing acts that are protecting some locations. Those locations are habitats of rare and endangered species and their communities, which are presented only at those protected areas in large number of numerous and vital populations.

• Permissions for using and circulation of species present combination of administrative professional conservation methods. The exploitation of original plants is limited in the aim of protection of habitats of their populations and their total number. Estimates of floristic diversity state enable performing those restrictions.

• Operative implementation of the control over the harvesting and trade of original medicinal plants is enabling from the viewpoint of the supervision.

Law of environmental protection and decree of controlled using and circulating of wild plant and animal species, are regulating the whole system of natural rarity protection. This law exists from 1991. Although it is a new law, there exist a need for its change in the aim of better gene-fond and floristic diversity protection. Experiences in law implementation till now, as well as changes of social and marketing conditions induce the change of this law. The basic law in the field of environmental protection is not correspondingly incorporated in customs control. Supervision on conveying decrees of wild plant and animal species trade is acting by Ministry, which is competent for trade. Farms creating and medicinal plant growing at the plantations are in the field of agriculture, and fines do not have any reasonable value. All these facts point to task of law for environmental protection. This law should solve the problem of original medicinal plant protecting by issuing conditions for their exploitations, defining their quantity in trade and controlling their abundance and collecting. But this law does not have possibilities for implementation of its aim. The acts have more flexibility than law in controlling actual conditions of natural resources, but they are limited by decrees of law.

Natural resources of original medicinal plants are exploited during a long period, and it can be seen from next data. In 1991, 25 original medicinal plant species were protected as natural rarities, and 6 species were under the control of their collection and trade. Today, 215 medicinal plant species are natural rarities and they are strictly protected, and 129 species are under the control of their collection and trade. A data from the Strategy of medicinal plant protection shows that 420 medicinal plant species are registered in Serbia (which are involved in investigations), and 119 species (105 in trade + 14 rarities) are under some kind of protection. Hence, 71.6% of original medicinal plants are endangered and under pressure of distinction, caused by anthropogenic factor. Inertia of law regulative is showed in fact that changes of decree in 1999 are not followed by changing the regulations of natural rarity protection. So, status of medicinal plant, Salvia officinalis, is changed. This plant is not under the control of trade or under any kind of protection.

The inertia of law regulative is possible to describe by fact, which shows that all strategic documents in this field are formed after the law. This mean that law permeation in implementation of aims in the field of original medicinal plant protection does not exist.

Passing acts of natural locations protection is very good aim of original medicinal plant protection. These protected national locations have autochthon ecosystems, so there could be protected medicinal plants, too. In Serbia, 383 objects, with surface of 406738 ha (4.3% of total surface of Serbia), have a status of protected natural habitats. In 2010, 10% of total surface should be protected, which is good base for original medicinal plant protection on these habitats, too. A lot of defects exist in realization of protecting the natural areas, and in medicinal plant protection, because their supervision is realized by keeping service of guardian.

The Republic environmental inspection is responsible for performing the medicinal plant protection. There are 39 environmental inspectors in Serbia, and 10 of them are in the field of natural protection. The control - system has to be adapted at controlling of the last "link on a chain": collector - purchase station - intermediary - the last distributor. Picture shows the scheme of collecting and trade of plant species.

The number of persons that are collecting the plants in the field is very large. So, the supervising of those people is irrational, excepting the supervising of protected natural habitats. Purchase stations were controlled during the last few years, but that process is not efficiently enough since those stations are situated in a lot of distant towns. So, there does not exist continuity between receiving information and realizing the control of those stations. If the permission for supervising of plant collecting and trade will be given to the community environmental inspection, the efficiency of supervising would be better because of possible mobility of inspectors in the smaller areas. The real supervising is possible on the next level of intermediary, which have own permission for trade of plant species, or can work with permission of the last distributors. Therefore, it often occurs that one permission serves out for "links on a chain" of plant species trade. This is done by the last distributor who is often an importer of medicinal plants. On this way, controlling the plant species trade is very difficult since this is often done without the last distributor permission. Exporting of medicinal plants is performing as exporting of raw matters, so this causes the collection of large medicinal plant quantities.

Figure 1.

The principle of limiting the territory of plant collecting (in some regions collecting is forbidden while it is permitted in other) is not good enough since it is impossible to consolidate the source and trade of collected plant species. So, it is much better to perform the principle of time limiting (to forbid the collecting in the current year) at the whole territory.

The main problem is the lack of unique group of information in the field of environmental protection and agriculture in cases of plant species trade. So, protection of plant habitats and taking care of medicinal plant population number is very important task because of medicinal plant collection without permissions.

In table 1 are shown the data for 1998 and 1999, which represent the quantity of plant species (in kg). Analyzing those data enable the notice of presence of illegal original medicinal plants collection and trade. This means that the real quantity of collected medicinal plants from nature is larger than their permitted quantity. But, it is really impossible to make an estimate of illegal trade of medicinal plants. The pressure on various plant species is different, so this is very important for issuing the permissions of plant collection. This is shown by example of trade of Hypericum perforatum and H. barbatum, in the 1998. It can be seen that trade of these species is 706% more than their permitted trade. The next year (1999), illegal quantity of these plants was 70.6%, what are several times less than in 1998. But, during these two years 230000 kg of those two species were illegally collected from their natural habitats. The data also shows that 25 new plant species were collected last year.

The strict laws in the field of medicinal plant collection in developed countries cause the large pressure on nature territories in the countries that do not have enough efficient laws in this field. The international conventions are limiting the legal trade of endangered medicinal plants. But, many of those trades are illegal, so those conventions can not be always applied.

Administrative conservation system of original medicinal plants in Republic of Serbia is planed very well. The lack of this conservation system is at the level of law, which should regulate the national conservation of original medicinal plants. This law also should satisfy very dynamic influential process of the economic, public and social aspects of human activity. Also, the country policy should stimulate the growing of medicinal plants at the plantations. On that way, the pressure on natural resources will be less than it is now. At the level of passing the permissions, it is necessary to make new criterions for approving the collected plants quantities, and to make a new principle of time, not a territory, limitation of collected plants. Supervision should redefine the permissions of republic and community inspection. Also, penal policy, as a part of administrative conservation system, should provide reasonable value of fines in the aim to protect the national resources.

1. Amidžić L. et al. (1999): Strategy of medicinal plant protection in Serbia, Ministry for Environmental Protection of Serbia, Belgrade.

2. Archive data of Ministry for Environmental Protection of Serbia and Institute for Protection of Nature of Serbia.

3. Decree of controlled using and trading of original plant and animal species, Official Gazette of RS No. 17/99.

4. Resolution about policy of protecting biodiversity in FRY, Official Gazette of FRY No. 22/94.

5. Resolution about policy of environmental protection in FRY, Official Gazette of FRY No. 31/93.

6. Regulation of natural rarities protection, Official Gazette of RS No. 50/93.

7. Law of environmental protection, Official Gazette of RS No. 66/91, 53/95.

8. Law of environmental protection, Official Gazette of FRY No.

9. Decision of protecting plant species as natural rarities.