(Ethno botany in development and

conservation of resources)
Yasmeen Rehmat
Conservation biology

  is the scientific study of nature and

of Earth's biodiversity with the aim of
protecting species, their habitats, and ecosystems from
excessive rates of extinction and the erosion of biotic
interactions.
  It is an interdisciplinary subject drawing on natural

and social sciences, and the practice of natural resource

management
 Plant Conservation

Efforts are being taken to preserve the natural characteristics of Hopetoun

Falls, Australia while continuing to allow visitor access
What is plant conservation?

 Plant conservation is a broad group of activities which

aim to prevent plants from becoming extinct.
 It includes the direct conservation of wild populations,

collections of plants with gardens, education

programmes, invasive species control, recovery and
restoration work, research programmmes, training.
What is plant conservation?

 Plant conservation has long been over shadowed by

conservation efforts towards animals, and has also been
much divided among efforts focused on different
production sectors that rely on plant resources namely,
agriculture, forestry, non-wood forest products and
efforts targeting different ecosystems. Direct and
coherent efforts to conserve plant species have received
relatively little policy attention and research support
(Leaman, 2004).
What is plant conservation?
What is plant conservation?

 Overexploitation of wild populations and lack of

conservation programmes are two interlocking
problems facing sustainable management of these plant
resources, especially in African countries.
 In addition to the above problems, the loss of habitat

(through land use conversion, agricultural expansion

and so on) also results in the loss of both known and
unknown species in Ghana.
What are some of the plant conservation challenges
facing Africa botanic gardens?
 accurate data on plants, their distribution and the
threats that they face is often not known or not
accessible,
 loss of traditional land management and its associated

knowledge,
 loss of high-value species due to non-sustainable

harvesting,
 loss and fragmentation of remaining natural areas,
 plant conservation skills and infrastructure shortages.
Application of ethno botany to plant conservation .
 Conservation is directly linked to people’s values and
behaviour.
 It is therefore ironic that the people–conservation

interface has been neglected in the past.

 Part of this neglect has been due to a lack of

appreciation of the roles that the knowledge,

institutions and
 cultural perspectives of local people can play in

resource management and conservation

Application of ethno botany to plant conservation

 Over the past 30 years, conservation efforts have broadened

from the earlier emphasis
 on increasingly insular, strictly protected areas to a broader
approach involving land
 users in ‘bioregional’ management at an ecosystem level.
This broader approach is evident
 in the different World Conservation Union (IUCN)
categories of protected areas which
 were developed in the mid 1980s and recently modified at
the IV World Congress on
 National Parks and Protected Areas
Application of ethno botany to plant
conservation
 Applied Ethnobotany: people, wild plant
 use and conservation focuses on practical steps to

develop a better understanding of the

 values, vulnerability and resource management options

for wild, non-cultivated plant resources.

Application of ethno botany to plant conservation

 All three manuals stress the essential collaborative

nature of ethnobotany,
 linking scientific and folk knowledge. They also

contribute to efforts to build local capacity

 for plants conservation by promoting applied research

on biodiversity conservation
 which strengthens connections between biological and

social sciences
Rural development and conservation
 focuses on an issue crucial to rural development and
conservation:
 The impact of harvesting of wild plants by people.
 It thus covers the borderland between
 cultural and biological diversity.
 It is intended as a practical guide to approaches and

field methods
 for participatory work between resource users and

field researchers
Why use the term ‘wild’ plants?
 Some people are uncomfortable with the term ‘wild’ in the title
 Feeling that it sidesteps issues of indigenous peoples’ intellectual propertY.
 Few virgin habitats exist on earth, and landscape ‘domestication’ using fire

predates
 plant species domestication by people by about 200,000 years. At a species

level,
 the term wild to distinguish between wild and domesticated plant species,

where domesticated
 plant species are those whose breeding systems have been so changed

through
 genetic or phenotypic selection that they have become dependent upon

sustained human
 assistance for their survival.
Problems in conservation
 the problems facing conservation and resource
management seem insurmountable/not solveable.
 Indeed, many efforts to solve these problems through
interventions
 planned from the ‘outside’ by urban-based planners or
policy makers have failed. For
 this reason, there has been a move away from centralized
planning and identification of
 problems to a decentralized, local approach.
Ethnobotanical methods are part of this decentralized
approach,
 where people contribute to solutions in resourceful ways,
rather than being part of the problem
Application of ethno botany to plant conservation

 Innovative, decentralized approaches also have a way of

catching on and spreading
 Two examples are CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas
Management Programme for
 Indigenous Resources) in Zimbabwe (Child, 1996) and Joint
Forest Management
 Programme projects spread across India and Nepal
(Poffenberger et al, 1992a, b; Fischer,
 1995). Although small, and begun in isolation, these
programmes have built up experience
 and common ground that have been more widely applied.
 One of the strongest tests of conservation strategies
 is how resilient they are to the chaos of civil conflicts.
 Recent tests of this stem from
 conservation areas in Rwanda and the Democratic

Republic of Congo, engulfed by

 conflict (Hart and Hart, 1997; Fimbel and Fimbel,

1997).
 These Central African examples highlight the crucial
need for appropriate training for hand-picked local
people
 at various levels (rangers, technical staff, research

professionals and managers) to take

 responsibility for conservation programmes.
 International non-governmental organizations
 have key roles in this process, and one of these is to

support this training process.

The main lesson is
 that vehicles, buildings, and short-term consultants supported by large multinationals do not
make a conservation project.
 Instead, conservation is achieved by people with commitment.

 Project personnel recruited from the local population who demonstrate qualities of leadership
and commitment,

 who receive regular hands-on training that empowers them to take responsibility for the
 management of their natural resources, are the formula proven to sustain longterm
conservation efforts under difficult conditions.

 The combination of a few dedicated individuals, together with the support of a non-
governmental organization (independent of political constraints) with a long-term
commitment to conservation,

 is the best recipe for achieving lasting success in countries where

 political stability is in question, or perhaps anywhere.’ (Fimbel and Fimbel, 1997)
People and Plants Partners
 WWF (formerly the World Wide Fund For Nature), founded in
1961, is the world’s
 largest private nature conservation organization.

 It consists of 29 national organizations

 and associates, and works in more than 100 countries. The

coordinating
 headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland.
 The WWF mission is to conserve biodiversity, to ensure that the

use of renewable natural resources is sustainable and to promote

 actions to reduce pollution and wasteful consumption.
People and Plants Partners
 The United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the
 only UN agency with a mandate spanning the fields of

science (including social

 sciences), education, culture and communication.
 An international network of biosphere reserves

provides sites for conservation of biological

 diversity, long-term ecological research
 and testing and demonstrating approaches to the

sustainable use of natural resources.

ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW
 The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has 150
professional staff and associated researchers
 and works with partners in over 42 countries.

Research focuses on taxonomy, preparation

 of floras, economic botany, plant

biochemistry and many other specialized

fields.
 The Royal Botanic Gardens has one of the

largest herbaria in the world and an excellent

 botanic library
 How to identify the wild
plants with the help of given
literature
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification).

 Although plant taxonomists rely strongly

 on flower or fruit characters, it is very
 useful to be able to describe and use the
 characteristics of sterile material as an aid to
identification.
 Many
 field workers in the tropics and subtropics
 will already be familiar with some of the
 excellent field guides based on the vegetative
 characteristics of woody plants.
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification).
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification).

 Although plant growth form and leaf characteristics such

 as simple or compound leaves, arranged alternately or
opposite, are a basis of field identification, so too are
other vegetative characteristics.

 Learning about the vegetative characteristics of plants

also makes field work more interesting and enables field
workers to recognize many plant families from the
combination of three or four characteristics.
 This can be of practical value when identifying the family
or genus
 of a species from sterile material –something which led
the late Al Gentry (1993),
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification)

 it is very important to use all your senses to record

field characters based on vegetative criteria such as
smell, texture, sap colour, skin irritant qualities or
taste.

 It is also useful to describe characteristics of fresh

and dried plant material to assist identification.

 In some cases, it can be useful to construct your own

key for the most commonly used species, based on
bark, bulb, root or wood characters. Part of a key to
medicinal bulbs.
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification)

 Local people’s knowledge is an important guide to these

characteristics.
 In contrast with most taxonomists, who usually concentrate
on dried specimens of leaves, flowers and fruits in herbaria,
 Local people harvest and work with live, whole plants
through different seasons.

 They consequently have the opportunity to perceive

important characteristics of the plants, other than those
commonly used by taxonomists
 These are very useful to record during field work in addition
to collecting voucher specimens, and there are a number of
other reasons for this.
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification)

 it may be difficult to obtain fertile plant specimens that bear

flowers or fruits, or sometimes even leaves of a particular plant.
 They may be inaccessible, such as on the top branches of
rainforest trees.

 Alternatively, you may be working during a time of the year

when no leaves, flowers or fruits are available, such as during
the dry season in arid zones, deserts and savanna, or in the
cold season of alpine or arctic sites or temperate woodland.

 Similarly, in village and urban markets, medicinal plants and

chewing sticks are often sold without any leaves, flowers or
fruits attached.
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification)

 it is possible that systems of bark, root and

bulb identification could similarly combine
the best of indigenous and
 formal scientific approaches, using macro

and microscopic characters to develop

identification keys similar to those
 developed for wood identification.
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification)

 Local people have an excellent knowledge of

bark, root or bulb characters and make
slashes in bark or roots with a machete to
determine the identity of forest trees, rather
than use leaf or flower characteristics.

 Some of these are so characteristic that they

are referred to in the local names for that
species.
Use of taxonomic knowledge in field (identification)

 Identification of species by a fragment of

bark, roots or stem on the basis of a
combination of scent, sap, colour or texture
has its parallels in urban industrial society.
 Be careful to record whether these are

characters of fresh or dried bark, roots, wood

or leaves, as some features characterize dry
rather than fresh material.
Colour of roots, bark and wood
 This can be a useful first step in identifying
unknown samples of harvested plants.

 Wood colour characteristics are well

documented, with characteristics of roots and
 bark better known by ‘undergound
 botanists’ – herbalists and hunter-gatherers.
Taste
 Many people would be familiar with the taste of
spices such as cinnamon bark or the bitter
flavour of quinine (Cinchona).
 Bark can also have a hot, peppery flavour
(Warburgia species, Canellaceae) or taste sweet

 and aromatic (root bark of the climber Mondia

whitei).
 Some plants are toxic and/or taste absolutely
awful – so be careful
Exudates
 exudates that seep from the inner bark or
leaves when they are damaged.
 Milky latex is well known as a character of

the bark, leaves and roots of many members

of the Apocynaceae, Asclepiadaceae,
Caricaceae,
 Euphorbiaceae, Moraceae and Sapotaceae
 family.
 Also watch for any colour change when the

exudate is exposed to air.

Exudates
 Exudates are a feature of fresh rather than
the dry plant material that you would
encounten when working with a herbalist or
during a market survey.
 They may be still visible, however, in resin

canals or congealed lumps.

 While these will have changed colour, they

can still be a useful clue in the combination

of characters that help identify a specimen to
family or genus.
Ash and charcoal
 If you think of the hundreds of species and
tonnes of trees burned by local people each year
in household fires, or when clearing forest or
woodland for swidden agriculture,

 it is not surprising that insightful local people are

familiar with the ash or charcoal characteristics
of particular woody plants.

 Wood anatomists also use ash and charcoal

characteristics.
Ash and charcoal
 Then they look at the colour of the ash or
charcoal:
 is it grey or white; black; brown;or none of these
options (Miller, 1981)?

 Just as local names for plants often say something

about their colour or smell, so
 names can reflect their ash characteristics.

 This local knowledge needs to be better

documented and used by ethnobotanists.
Crystals
 Wood anatomists commonly use the presence
and type of calcium crystals, silica bodies and
cystoliths (calcium carbonate deposits) as
important microscopic characteristics of
wood (IAWA, 1981).
Describing bark characters
 Whether you are working with people in the field and
observing fresh bark or are observing dried bark
collected by herbalists or bought in village markets,

 it is useful to record bark characters that will aid

identification at a later stage.

 While wood anatomists clarified the terminology

 used in wood identification (IAWA, 1957,1989).

 Very few herbarium specimens record details of bark

characteristics.
Underground botany:identification of bulbs,corms and roots

field work with herbalists, food gatherers of

ethnobotanical surveys of local markets you are
unable to identify roots, corms, bulbs or tubers, do
not feel alone!
 With the emphasis that Linnaean taxonomy has

placed on flowers, fruits and leaves,

 and because above-ground plant parts are easier to

observe, formally trained botanists

 and plant ecologists generally have limited

knowledge of underground plant parts.
Underground botany:identification of bulbs,corms and roots

In contrast with many formally trained

taxonomists, craft workers, fishermen
herbalists and food gatherers frequently have
an excellent knowledge of the characteristics
of the roots and tubers
 used for dyes, fish toxins, floats and netting

fibre,medicines or food.
 it is often useful to record these important

morphological characters in ethnobotanical

work.
Describing macroscopic characteristics of wood

 Wood anatomists have developed

sophisticated ways of classifying wood and

 charcoal based on macroscopic and

microscopic characters, primarily due to the
 great economic importance of timber.
Describing macroscopic characteristics of wood
 classification provide a challenge for ethnobotanists and innovative
taxonomists.

 Wood identification systems have been developed using excellent

collections of voucher specimens of woods from many tree species.

 As a result, wood identification guides provide a standard for which

ethnobotanists working on non-timber products should strive to develop
for bark, roots, bulbs and corms.

 The advantages that ethnobotanists have in achieving a similar standard

of identification for bark, roots, bulbs and corms are, firstly, that many
of the characteristics of wood, such as odour, frothiness, fluorescence,

 And types of crystals, also apply to bark and to some bulbs, corms and
roots.

 Secondly, local uses already provide information on what characteristics

would be expected.