Traditional Medicines in a Global Economy: Resource Sustainability and Resilience in the Traditional Tibetan Medical Practice of Ingredient Substitution

I discuss the long-standing practice of ingredient substitution in traditional Tibetan medicine as an adaptive resource management strategy that has enabled resilience in the larger socio-ecological world of medicinal resources, cultural knowledge, and ecological stewardship. Given that there are increasing pressures on and threats to the natural resources utilized in Tibetan (and other) traditional medicines, this flexible strategy should be supported and further accommodated in the growing industry of medicine production. Current industrialized pharmaceutical standardization suffers from a rigidity that partially threatens a sustainable resource management strategy. The theoretical orientation I utilize draws from Resilience Theory literature and discusses adaptive cycles, panarchy, and rigidity traps in the sphere of traditional Tibetan medical knowledge, medicine production, and resource management.