Biocultural Collections and Participatory Methods: Old, Current, and Future Knowledge (original) (raw)
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Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology Applied to Historical Ecology
In this chapter, the reader will find guidelines and suggestions for the application of ethnobotanical and ethnoecological methods in archaeological sites and their surroundings, aiming to establish a closer dialogue between ethnobiology and archaeology for understanding the human history of past and present landscapes. The goal of such methodological proposals is to document the knowledge and practices of human populations that live on and around archaeological sites concerning the vegetation of these areas. The methods presented here can shed light on specific questions about the relationships between past human populations and their plant resources (e.g., practices of use, management, and domestication), helping to understand how people transformed the landscape and how the legacies of such relationships are visible in the present. This chapter is collectively written by ethnobiologists, botanists, ecologists, and archaeologists from several institutions working in the Amazon basin. Thus, examples presented here come mainly from research conducted in this region.
Ethnobotanical Knowledge Is Vastly Under-Documented in Northwestern South America
PLoS ONE, 2014
A main objective of ethnobotany is to document traditional knowledge about plants before it disappears. However, little is known about the coverage of past ethnobotanical studies and thus about how well the existing literature covers the overall traditional knowledge of different human groups. To bridge this gap, we investigated ethnobotanical data-collecting efforts across four countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), three ecoregions (Amazon, Andes, Chocó ), and several human groups (including Amerindians, mestizos, and Afro-Americans). We used palms (Arecaceae) as our model group because of their usefulness and pervasiveness in the ethnobotanical literature. We carried out a large number of field interviews (n = 2201) to determine the coverage and quality of palm ethnobotanical data in the existing ethnobotanical literature (n = 255) published over the past 60 years. In our fieldwork in 68 communities, we collected 87,886 use reports and documented 2262 different palm uses and 140 useful palm species. We demonstrate that traditional knowledge on palm uses is vastly under-documented across ecoregions, countries, and human groups. We suggest that the use of standardized data-collecting protocols in wide-ranging ethnobotanical fieldwork is a promising approach for filling critical information gaps. Our work contributes to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and emphasizes the need for signatory nations to the Convention on Biological Diversity to respond to these information gaps. Given our findings, we hope to stimulate the formulation of clear plans to systematically document ethnobotanical knowledge in northwestern South America and elsewhere before it vanishes.
How I became an ethnobotanist" an interview with ERA Associate Editor Dr. Narel Paniagua Zambrana
Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 2022
An interview with Narel Paniagua-Zambrana, Senior Scientist of the Department of Ethnobotany at the Institute of Botany, Ilia State University, Georgia, Associated Researcher of Herbario Nacional de Bolivia and co-director of Saving Knowledge. Her work focuses on ethnobotanical research and the preservation of traditional knowledge, in the Andes, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas. Narel Paniagua-Zambrana interviewing Ese Eja indigenous people in the community of Palma Real, Tambopata, Peru (Photo RW Bussmann). I am an ethnobotanist, and I study the complex relationship that people establish with plants through their use. This implies aspects related to their culture, their history, their socioeconomic context, and the environment in which they develop. I started studying ecology, seeking to understand the effect of the use of plants on ecosystems, and very quickly I understood that without incorporating people, their vision, knowledge, and perceptions, we could never conserve the ecosystems and plants that we wanted to protect. We now collaborate with local communities to protect and preserve their knowledge as the most important tool in conservation. Pressing the collection of the day, one of the most common activities in botany and ethnobotany. Rio Marañon, Peru 2013 (Photo RW Bussmann). Describe your work/what you see as your mission My motivation / mission has changed a lot over the years that I have been collaborating with indigenous and local communities. It started with a fascination for the way people use plants, and now it has morphed into a deep respect for the way they "relate" to plants. After more than 15 years working on this issue, I must say that the word "use" does not fit at all for the "relationship" that people establish with plants that allows them to take advantage of their benefits. It is a relationship that involves social, cultural, historical, economic, and environmental aspects, and it is as complex as it is fascinating. And precisely to contribute to understanding this complex relationship, our research consists of documenting this knowledge and correctly identifying the plants to which people attribute a use. In this way we have the information on use, local names and local classification provided by members of the community, and we also have a scientific collection of plants that allows us to know exactly what species we are talking about. These collections are deposited in local (national) herbaria, and in this way, they also serve to protect the Natural Heritage in their own countries. In addition, the results of all our research have been returned to the local populations in formats and languages chosen by them (Balslev et al.
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Background Although multiple studies advocate the advantages of participatory research approaches for ethnoscience, few provide solid contributions from case studies that involve residents in all of the project phases. We present a case study of a participatory approach whose aim is to register ethnobotanical knowledge on the use of plants in two quilombola communities (maroon communities), an important biodiversity hotspot in the Atlantic Forest, Southeast Brazil. Our aim is to provide tools that will empower decision-making related to sustainable use and management among residents. Methods In phase I, the objectives and activities were defined in meetings with residents to carry out ethnobotanical surveys between two quilombola communities—the Quilombo da Fazenda (QF) and Quilombo do Cambury (QC). In phase II, we offered community partners training courses on how to collect plants and ethnobotanical data. In coordination with the university team and using ethnobotanical methods, c...
Economic Botany, 2007
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS. Ethnobotanists use a variety of interview techniques to collect ethnobotanical data. Drawing upon the results from a quantitative ethnobotanical study in five Yuracare and Trinitario communities in the Bolivian Amazon, the pros and cons of the following methods are evaluated: (1) interviews in situ during transects, walk-in-the-woods, and homegarden sampling; and (2) interviews ex situ with fresh plant material, voucher specimens, or plant photographs as reference tools. Although the systematic use of plant photographs for ethnobotanical interviews is poorly documented in literature, the results show that indigenous participants in our study recognize significantly more plant species from photographs than from voucher specimens. It is argued that, especially in remote and isolated study sites, photographs might be advantageous over voucher specimens.
PeerJ
Ethnobotanical studies that use the participatory research approach seek to involve the residents of a community in different stages of the study, promoting the registration, dissemination and strengthening of local knowledge, as well as the empowerment of decisions related to the sustainable use and management of resources. Using the participatory methodology, this study recorded and made a comparative analysis on the use of plants in two quilombola communities (Quilombo do Cambury-QC and Quilombo da Fazenda-QF) in the State of São Paulo. After a training on anthropological and botanical methods, local researchers selected and interviewed the local experts, recording their knowledge on plant uses and collecting the indicated plants, to be identified and deposited in herbariums. In addition, participant observation and field diaries were used by the academic researchers, helping to analyze the data. To test the differences in the composition of species known to local community, a Ja...
Chapter 22. Use of herbarium specimens in ethnobotany
The herbarium -a collection of pressed plants mounted on paper -is central to the practice of ethnobotany, and to the use of all the other plant collections discussed in this book. Herbarium specimens both vouch for the identity of the plants being studied, and are themselves documents of plant use by people.