The Lecturers

1. Dr. Victoria Kristina Ananingsih
2. Prof. Dr. Y. Budi Widianarko, M.Sc
3. Inneke Hantoro, STP, M.Sc
4. Laksmi Hartayanie, MP
5. Irayudi Lazuardi, STP

Jamu, A Promising Indonesian Heritage

Indonesia is very rich in biodiversity (ranks 2^nd worldwide after Amazon forest in Brazil). The area of Indonesian tropical forests covers about 143 million hectares and is inhabited by about 80% of the world’s medicinal plants. Moreover, Indonesia is a home of 370 ethnics who live in the nearby forest all over the country. Each of them possesses their own local wisdom to utilize plants around them for health and beauty maintenance. The ancestors made use of this natural richness as the source of their medicine to cure diseases. By trial and error, the ancestors were able to distinguish herbal from poisonous plants. They even combined and formulated them by various processing ways to gain optimum result. This local knowledge of herbal medicine which is inherited through generations is commonly known as Jamu

Jamu itself is a word in Javanese tribe language, meaning the traditional medicine from plants. Today, jamu has been adopted into Bahasa Indonesia with the similar meaning. However, though Jamu was originated from Java, the practice of medication using herb have been practiced by many other ethnics around Indonesia. Up until now, the habit of consuming Jamu for health maintenance still become an important part of daily life of almost 45% of Indonesian inhabitants.

Jamu can be an extremely potential commodity of Indonesia in global market, as the world market for natural products are keep increasing. In 2000, the global revenue of herbal products reached US$ 43 billion, and increased to US$ 68.6 billion in 2004. In addition, according on Corinthian Infopharma Corpora (CIC) in the year of 2000, the consumption of jamu is increasing with the growth of 5,4% per year due to the tendency of people to prefer natural alternative medication for the reason of less side-effects than the synthetic ones. Therefore, some of jamu materials and products can also become reliable export commodities to boost up national income. Moreover, Jamu can become Indonesian identity in international perspective.