The taxol or paclitaxel extracted from the Taxus baccata has great demand worldwide as it is used for the treatment of ovarian cancer, breast cancer and lungs cancer. However, the Taxus is very slow growing, least available and distant. Due to the high demand and incentives there has been reckless exploitation of the plant. Now in many areas its population has reduced substantially. The northern India, a store house of the species, reports 90% reduction of population. Arunachal Pradesh has about 82% of the forest cover and in many places forest is purely virgin without the human interferences. The occurrences of Taxus baccata is reported in several sites of temperate forest of the State and mainly in the West Kameng District. However, the large scale extraction during 1990s has put this resource at the verge of extraction. A phytogeographical survey was conducted in some villages and adjacent forest of West Kameng District in order to ascertain the present status. The survey reveals only dead remnants of the trees with few isolated saplings.
