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SAUSSUREA COSTUS ALPINA PROJECT Medicinal plants are an important ecological and economic resource in the Alps. Using the genus Sausserea as a model, the Uttarakhand Organic Board in the Indian Himalaya has started an initiative for the humanitarian and ethical cultivation of Saussurea costus, which is recognized for its medical properties. Saussurea costus (Kuth) is nearly extinct from the wild. It has been enlisted in CITES (Appendix I, total prohibited from trade). Fortunately in Uttarakhand state, its cultivation and trade is allowed for the growers registered with HRDI हर्बल प्रदेश-सकारात्मक परिवेश: Herbal Sector in Action, Gopeshwar. HUMAN INDIA SOCIETY is promoting farmers of district Uttarakashi to take up mass scale production of Kuth. Training programms on quality production, processing, packaging, Storage, etc are being organized by the society. Marketing of Kuth with optimum prices has already been ensured. The ultimate aim is to conserve germplasm of this highly prized critically endangered species by making it as an cash crop for hill agriculture. Another species of Sausserea, Saussurea alpina, is native to the Alps and may it is also nearly extinct and have similar economic and medicinal potential. We propose to develop guidelines for the explo- ration and sustainable utilization of this species, using the cultivation procedure in Uttarakhand as an example for cultivating S. alpina in the Alps. We want to test the feasibility of using Saussurea costus to develop health products, which will later help guide the development of health-enhancing products containing S. alpina. Medicinal plants provide many ecological services that are at the heart of human well-being. In addition to their healing properties, medicinal plants help to purify water and to stabilize the composition of the atmosphere. As with other plants, the solutions that medicinal plants have evolved to cope with environmental challenges vary enormously from species to species and often involve associations with other organisms, such as microbes and insects. Our lack of success in understanding the traits that are important for a medicinal plant's environmental performance is in part a failure to heal the unhappy divorce that split plant biology departments along cellular-molecular and ecological-evolutionary lines. The solution to this problem is to form a research model that reconnects these two types of scientific investigation and apply it to an important and rare plant genus: Sausserea, particularly Saussurea costus and Saussurea alpina. Saussurea alpina is a plant that lives in the Alps and has never been studied in a scientific manner. However, it shares many similarities with S. costus in India, the medicinal properties of which are well documented in traditional Chinese medicine, Tibetan medicine and ayurvedic medicine. This research investigates the medical and economic potential of Saussurea by establishing research cultivation areas in the Alps and conducting cellular-molecular research. If research can scientifically and unambiguously demonstrate the therapeutic effects of Saussurea alpina, this native plant may be a valuable source of new income for Alpine farmers. The cultivation of S. alpina and the development of new medical products would benefit both the environment and human health by providing a profitable, completely organic and carbon neutral crop that thrives on abandoned pastures and provides medicinal products that benefit to human health.