Ethnobotany and its role

Ethnobotany

Ethnobotany is the scientific study of the relationships that exist between peoples and plants. More precisely, it is the study of the direct interaction between people and plants. Ethnobotany is a human science that investigates the complex relationships that exist between plants and people, including the use of plants for food, shelter, medicine, clothing, hunting, and religious ceremonies. Ethnobotany is the study of how people of a particular culture and region make use of indigenous plants. The word “ethnobotany” is derived from the Greek word “ethnos” meaning people, and “botany” meaning the study of plants. Ethnobotanists explore traditional knowledge and use of plants by people. Among other issues, ethnobotanists analyze the impact of local people on their environment.

Role in Ecosystem Management

The traditional use of plant species for purposes other than food, forage, or medicine also affects landscapes. These practices play an important role in managing hunting and fishing grounds, creating travel routes, placing safeguards against flooding, and maintaining useful habitats. The ecosystem is shaped by a long process of interactions between natural and cultural phenomena. Human intervention can have positive or negative effects on the environment, but appropriate management of natural resources exists even in the most fragile ecosystems. Management and transformation of an ecosystem may induce an enhancement of biodiversity. Rather than being devoid of vegetation, landscapes can support a greater diversity of species thanks to a typical ethnobotanical approach.

Ethnobotany should therefore become an important element for ecosystem management, habitat restoration, and other activities in those areas that have been largely or very deeply modified by man, such as natural or artificial wetlands. The knowledge of useful plants developed by local populations is a fundamental resource able to suggest models and methods of strategic management and sustainable ecosystem restoration. Particular attention must be paid to wetlands as vulnerable yet productive and rich environments whose different types of bioclimatic variations determine a remarkable local biodiversity of flora and fauna.

Preserving Indigenous Knowledge

A growing awareness of realities edges open a window of opportunity toward accord with new conservation approaches that recognize the dynamic character of indigenous knowledge and cultural processes. Right or wrong, indigenous people—directly connected with the environment—have an intuitive knowledge expressed in customs, rituals, and ancestral practices. The continuity of living with “the sacred and profane” represents an irreplaceable intangible culture; the community’s history becomes a living source of cultural identity and self-expression.

Much of the world’s biodiversity resides in developing countries, yet its preservation remains inaccessible to the majority of the population. Strategies that incorporate ethnobotany and participative rural appraisal include indigenous knowledge alongside that of “scientists.” Ethnobotanical information—often ethnobotanically trained—represents the fundamental first step in efforts to decrease poverty, increase food security, diversify production, and protect the environment.

Preservation of Traditional Farming Practices

Plant species globally provide food, fodder, timber, wax, oils, gums, resins, tannins, fertilizers, insecticides, and many other products. Farming methods and agricultural practices vary across regions and communities, with some areas practicing various forms of sustainable farming that have a low impact on the environment. Traditional farming systems, inherent to indigenous cultures, support the conservation of many plant species. These systems, developed over centuries by indigenous farmers and gained through their generations of interaction with nature, are low-cost and low-impact, relying on locally available resources and materials for crop production. These practices contribute significantly to the conservation of both forests and other natural ecosystems.

Genetic resources play a crucial role in agricultural production, maintaining biodiversity and supporting sustainable agriculture. The increase in farming with genetically modified crops in developed countries has led to a significant decrease in agrobiodiversity, while traditional farming areas continue to provide a wide range of genetic material for researchers and plant breeders to meet emerging needs. Traditional farming practices are one factor responsible for maintaining food crop diversity and, thus, a valuable reserve of genes. Indigenous farming systems also contribute to the sustainable management of natural ecosystems in the face of modern threats.

Conservation of Crop Diversity and Food Security

Ethnobotanical knowledge plays an important part in preserving biodiversity in crop species. Traditional low-technology, low-impact farming systems, such as shifting cultivation, controlled wild harvesting, low-input mixed crop production, along with religious or cultural prohibitions on the use of certain wild or domesticated plants, have created and maintained agrobiodiversity as a byproduct. A great number of crop species exist only because they yield quality food, fiber, beverages, tobacco, or other products for use by indigenous peoples.

Species that supply locally important food varieties, adapted to ecological and edaphic extremes, that are therefore important components of the genetic resources base for crop improvement, may have been considered unimportant by developers of modern high-input and high-yielding agriculture. These ecologically adapted local crops can be of great value in a time of changing climate. Why maintain plant species by keeping their habitats intact and their evolved characteristics undisturbed? The answers lie in food security—in the depths of upheaval in society and the world. Complex societies require low food prices: anything pushed up in price, be it fuel, machinery, or food, has the potential to provoke revolution.