The knowledge and art of traditional therapy, once the main cure among Thais, may soon be lost along with aging practitioners, it is feared.

To prevent that, local communities and NGOs in Nan recently joined forces to revive the knowledge by encouraging traditional healers who have retired for 10-15 years to start practising herbal therapy again.

The Hak Muang Nan (Love Nan) Group, a network of local communities, religious institutions, NGOs and academics, started getting involved in traditional medicine recently.

Phra Khru Pithak-nanthakun of Wat Aranyawat, who chairs the group, said traditional healing used to be rejected by the authorities on grounds it lacked scientific evidence to prove its effectiveness.

"Only recently has the interest in herbal medicine been revived, and this has led to the beginning of our involvement in traditional medicine," he said.

The group's activities in traditional medicine cover three main areas - reviving the practice among aged healers, conserving rare herbs, and reviving relevant knowledge.

Samruay Padpol, deputy chairman of the group, said since traditional healers had stopped practising for up to 15 years due to the increasing use of modern medicine, it was necessary to encourage them to revive their old knowledge.

He pointed out it was difficult to conserve herbs because traditional healers, after years of retirement, were finding it difficult to identify several species.

Low earnings from herbal therapy have also discouraged villagers from growing herbs, turning instead to more profitable crops.

To increase herbal cultivation, the group has joined with local people to grow herbs in community forests. Nan currently has 39 community forest plots on some 5,000 rai of land.

Mr Samruay said the group had no intention to replace state authorities in forest administration; all it wanted to do was to enable communities to take care of their natural resources.

He pointed out it was very difficult to revive the knowledge of traditional medicine because information was either transferred verbally through generations or written in the ancient Lanna language which few people could read.

"Those who could read these medical formulas have become very old and are now finding it difficult just to see the texts," he said.

Phra Khru Pithak-nanthakun said though the communities and state authorities had worked closely together to revive herbal therapy, he hoped to see more recognition among younger generations.

Sujinan Kwanthongma is one of the few young people interested in herbal medicine.

The 17-year-old girl has joined a group of about 80 other youngsters in Santisuk district to learn more about traditional medicine in their spare time.

Anong Padpol, 27, is another young hope for the Hak Muang Nan Group. Having a traditional healer as her grandfather, she has been influenced by traditional ways of healing from childhood.

She said it had become more difficult to find medicinal plants these days due to the shrinking of forest land.

Worse than that, she said, the number of old people who could read prescriptions traditionally written on palm leaves was getting smaller and smaller.

"If we don't begin lighting new candles, the old ones that have been in use for a long time will soon fade away and we will have no light left," she said.

Usually, when a traditional healer dies his personal belongings, including palm-leaf books of medicine, are burned along with his body.

Despite being a student of modern technology at Rajabhat Institute in Lampang, Santiphap Poolsaeng, or "Moh (Doctor) Khaek", has been practising traditional healing over the past few years.

Santiphap, 21, said he started getting interested in traditional medicine since childhood because an elderly relative he was fond of was a traditional healer.

"I often spent my time at her place and listened to her stories. Initially, I didn't know what herbs she was referring to," he said.

His growing interest encouraged him to begin treating neighbours, and as time went by more and more people came to seek his help.

Mr Samruay said though the Hak Muang Nan Group had been successful in encouraging young people to become interested in traditional medicine, a lot more needed to be done to increase the knowledge.

According to the Institute of Traditional Thai Medicine, at least 15 items of imported antibiotics and other common drugs worth about 10 billion baht yearly can be replaced by traditional drugs.