Articles

Ethnobotanical knowledge acquisition during daily chores: the firewood collection of pastoral Maasai girls in Southern Kenya

Researchers considering children’s traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) highlighted the importance of examining children’s daily activities as empirical contexts for its acquisition. Many of them evaluated c...

Authors: Xiaojie Tian

Swiss ethnoveterinary knowledge on medicinal plants – a within-country comparison of Italian speaking regions with north-western German speaking regions

Ethnoveterinary knowledge in Europe may play an important role as a basis for sustainable treatment options for livestock. Aims of our study were (a) to compare the ethnoveterinary practices of two culturally ...

Authors: Maria Mayer, Mirjam Zbinden, Christan R. Vogl, Silvia Ivemeyer, Beat Meier, Michele Amorena, Ariane Maeschli, Matthias Hamburger and Michael Walkenhorst

Traditional Mapuche ecological knowledge in Patagonia, Argentina: fishes and other living beings inhabiting continental waters, as a reflection of processes of change

Understanding how people interpret environmental change and develop practices in response to such change is essential to comprehend human resource use. In the cosmology of the American indigenous peoples, as a...

Authors: Juana Aigo and Ana Ladio

Ethnobotanical survey of cosmetic plants used in Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia)

Cosmetic plants and their uses have often been neglected in ethnobotanical surveys which focus mainly on plants with medicinal or food uses. Thus, this survey was carried out to specifically investigate cosmet...

Authors: Xénia Jost, Jean-Luc Ansel, Gaël Lecellier, Phila Raharivelomanana and Jean-François Butaud

Ethnoagroforestry: integration of biocultural diversity for food sovereignty in Mexico

Documenting the spectrum of ecosystem management, the roles of forestry and agricultural biodiversity, TEK, and human culture for food sovereignty, are all priority challenges for contemporary science and soci...

Authors: Ana Isabel Moreno-Calles, Alejandro Casas, Alexis Daniela Rivero-Romero, Yessica Angélica Romero-Bautista, Selene Rangel-Landa, Roberto Alexander Fisher-Ortíz, Fernando Alvarado-Ramos, Mariana Vallejo-Ramos and Dídac Santos-Fita

Ethno-medicinal survey of important plants practiced by indigenous community at Ladha subdivision, South Waziristan agency, Pakistan

Medicinal flora plays a vital role in treating various types of ailments in living beings. The present study was planned to investigate and document systematically the indigenous knowledge in a scientifically ...

Authors: Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Muhammad Adnan, Amir Hasan Khan, Atiq Ur Rehman, Rahmatullah Jan and Jafar Khan

Seahorses in focus: local ecological knowledge of seahorse-watching operators in a tropical estuary

Seahorses are endangered teleost fishes under increasing human pressures worldwide. In Brazil, marine conservationists and policy-makers are thus often skeptical about the viability of sustainable human-seahor...

Authors: Maria L. F. Ternes, Leopoldo C. Gerhardinger and Alexandre Schiavetti

Influence of ethnic traditional cultures on genetic diversity of rice landraces under on-farm conservation in southwest China

Crop genetic resources are important components of biodiversity. However, with the large-scale promotion of mono-cropping, genetic diversity has largely been lost. Ex-situ conservation approaches were widely used...

Authors: Yanjie Wang, Yanli Wang, Xiaodong Sun, Zhuoma Caiji, Jingbiao Yang, Di Cui, Guilan Cao, Xiaoding Ma, Bing Han, Dayuan Xue and Longzhi Han

Riverine fishers’ knowledge of extreme climatic events in the Brazilian Amazonia

Climate change is altering climate patterns, mainly increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme events with potentially serious impacts on natural resources and the people that use them. Adapting to such...

Authors: Ana Isabel Camacho Guerreiro, Richard J. Ladle and Vandick da Silva Batista

Wild food plants and minor crops in the Ripollès district (Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula): potentialities for developing a local production, consumption and exchange program

Wild food plants (WFP) have always been consumed by humans, first as the main basis of their food and, since the origins of agriculture, as ingredients of normal diets or as an alternative during situations of...

Authors: Montse Rigat, Airy Gras, Ugo D’Ambrosio, Teresa Garnatje, Montse Parada and Joan Vallès

A comparison of traditional plant knowledge between students and herders in northern Kenya

The Samburu region of northern Kenya is undergoing significant change, driven by factors including greater value on formal education, improvements in infrastructure and development, a shift from community to p...

Authors: Brett L. Bruyere, Jonathan Trimarco and Saruni Lemungesi

Folk knowledge of invertebrates in Central Europe - folk taxonomy, nomenclature, medicinal and other uses, folklore, and nature conservation

There is scarce information about European folk knowledge of wild invertebrate fauna. We have documented such folk knowledge in three regions, in Romania, Slovakia and Croatia. We provide a list of folk taxa, ...

Authors: Viktor Ulicsni, Ingvar Svanberg and Zsolt Molnár

Children as ethnobotanists: methods and local impact of a participatory research project with children on wild plant gathering in the Grosses Walsertal Biosphere Reserve, Austria

Ethically sound research in applied ethnobiology should benefit local communities by giving them full access to research processes and results. Participatory research may ensure such access, but there has been...

Authors: Susanne Grasser, Christoph Schunko and Christian R. Vogl

Wild and native plants and mushrooms sold in the open-air markets of south-eastern Poland

The study of plants and fungi sold in open-air markets is an important part of ethnobotanical enquiry. Only few such studies were carried out in Europe.

Authors: Renata Kasper-Pakosz, Marcin Pietras and Łukasz Łuczaj

Health seeking behavior and use of medicinal plants among the Hamer ethnic group, South Omo zone, southwestern Ethiopia

Health seeking behavior of people around the globe is affected by different socio-cultural and economic factors. In Ethiopia, people living in rural areas in particular, are noted for their use of medicinal pl...

Authors: Biniam Paulos, Teferi Gedif Fenta, Daniel Bisrat and Kaleab Asres

A comparative ethnobotany of Khevsureti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Tusheti, Svaneti, and Racha-Lechkhumi, Republic of Georgia (Sakartvelo), Caucasus

The Republic of Georgia (Sakartvelo in Georgian language) is part of the Caucasus biodiversity hotspot, and human agricultural plant use dates bat at least 6000 years. However, little ethnobiological research ...

Authors: Rainer W. Bussmann, Narel Y. Paniagua Zambrana, Shalva Sikharulidze, Zaal Kikvidze, David Kikodze, David Tchelidze, Manana Khutsishvili, Ketevan Batsatsashvili and Robbie E. Hart

Plants from disturbed savannah vegetation and their usage by Bakongo tribes in Uíge, Northern Angola

This study represents the first in-depth ethnobotanical study in the province of Uíge in northern Angola and documents the traditional knowledge of the Bakongo people living in the area. Due to deforestation a...

Authors: Anne Göhre, Álvaro Bruno Toto-Nienguesse, Macaia Futuro, Christoph Neinhuis and Thea Lautenschläger

Fauna used by rural communities surrounding the protected area of Chapada do Araripe, Brazil

Studies on the inter-relations between people and animals have been considered essential to better understand the dynamics of socio-ecological systems. This study aimed to register the animal species known by ...

Authors: Kallyne Machado Bonifácio, Alexandre Schiavetti and Eliza Maria Xavier Freire

Local knowledge held by farmers in Eastern Tyrol (Austria) about the use of plants to maintain and improve animal health and welfare

The sustainable management of animal health and welfare is of increasing importance to consumers and a key topic in the organic farming movement. Few systematic studies have been undertaken investigating farme...

Authors: Christian R. Vogl, Brigitte Vogl-Lukasser and Michael Walkenhorst

Ethnobotanical study of traditional edible plants used by the Naxi people during droughts

Since 2009, millions of people have been forced to live under food shortage by the continuous drought in Southwestern China. The market was the primary source of aid grains, and fears that the market will be u...

Authors: Lingling Zhang, Zhenzhen Chai, Yu Zhang, Yanfei Geng and Yuahua Wang

Ethnobotany of the Balti community, Tormik valley, Karakorum range, Baltistan, Pakistan

Limited health facilities and malnutrition are major problems in the Karakorum Range of Northern Pakistan, often resulting in various human disorders. Since centuries, however, local communities in these areas...

Authors: Zaheer Abbas, Shujaul Mulk Khan, Arshad Mehmood Abbasi, Andrea Pieroni, Zahid Ullah, Muhammad Iqbal and Zeeshan Ahmad

Fern rhizomes as fodder in Norway

Although ferns are often known under collective names in Norway, e.g. blom, a substantial number of vernacular names for individual fern species are known, in particular for useful or poisonous taxa. In the past,...

Authors: Torbjørn Alm

Therapeutic and prophylactic uses of invertebrates in contemporary Spanish ethnoveterinary medicine

Zootherapeutic practices in ethnoveterinary medicine are important in many socio-cultural environments around the world, particularly in developing countries, and they have recently started to be inventoried a...

Authors: José Antonio González, Francisco Amich, Salvador Postigo-Mota and José Ramón Vallejo

Traditional knowledge and use of wild mushrooms by Mixtecs or Ñuu savi, the people of the rain, from Southeastern Mexico

Mexico is an important global reservoir of biological and cultural richness and traditional knowledge of wild mushrooms. However, there is a high risk of loss of this knowledge due to the erosion of traditiona...

Authors: Faustino Hernández Santiago, Jesús Pérez Moreno, Beatriz Xoconostle Cázares, Juan José Almaraz Suárez, Enrique Ojeda Trejo, Gerardo Mata Montes de Oca and Irma Díaz Aguilar

Exploiting indigenous knowledge of subsistence farmers’ for the management and conservation of Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman) (musaceae family) diversity on-farm

Enset (Ensete ventricosum (Welw.) Cheesman) belongs to the order sctaminae, the family musaceae. The Musaceae family is subdivided into the genera Musa and Ensete. Enset is an important staple crop for about 20 m...

Authors: Zerihun Yemataw, Kassahun Tesfaye, Awole Zeberga and Guy Blomme

Traditional climate knowledge: a case study in a peasant community of Tlaxcala, Mexico

Traditional climate knowledge is a comprehensive system of insights, experiences and practices used by peasant communities to deal with the uncertainties of climate conditions affecting their livelihood. This ...

Authors: Alexis D. Rivero-Romero, Ana I. Moreno-Calles, Alejandro Casas, Alicia Castillo and Andrés Camou-Guerrero

Ethnobotanical study of wild edible plants in Burji District, Segan Area Zone of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR), Ethiopia

An ethnobotanical study of wild edible plants was conducted in Burji District, Segan Area Zone of Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region, Ethiopia. The objective of the study was to identify and do...

Authors: Mersha Ashagre, Zemede Asfaw and Ensermu Kelbessa

TEK and biodiversity management in agroforestry systems of different socio-ecological contexts of the Tehuacán Valley

Transformation of natural ecosystems into intensive agriculture is a main factor causing biodiversity loss worldwide. Agroforestry systems (AFS) may maintain biodiversity, ecosystem benefits and human wellbein...

Authors: Mariana Vallejo-Ramos, Ana I. Moreno-Calles and Alejandro Casas

Ixcatec ethnoecology: plant management and biocultural heritage in Oaxaca, Mexico

Studying motives of plant management allows understanding processes that originated agriculture and current forms of traditional technology innovation. Our work analyses the role of native plants in the Ixcate...

Authors: Selene Rangel-Landa, Alejandro Casas, Erandi Rivera-Lozoya, Ignacio Torres-García and Mariana Vallejo-Ramos

Medicinal plants sold at traditional markets in southern Ecuador

The traditional markets in southern Ecuador and within the Andean region are especially important for plant resource trading among local people, even since before Spanish colonization; therefore, ethnobotanica...

Authors: Fani Tinitana, Montserrat Rios, Juan Carlos Romero-Benavides, Marcelino de la Cruz Rot and Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana

Medicinal plants of Dagala region in Bhutan: their diversity, distribution, uses and economic potential

The traditional g.so-ba-rig-pa hospitals in Bhutan uses more than 100 polyingredient medicines that are manufactured by the Menjong Sorig Pharmaceuticals (MSP). The MSP has been collecting medicinal plants from L...

Authors: Phurpa Wangchuk, Kuenga Namgay, Karma Gayleg and Yeshi Dorji

Traditional alcoholic beverages and their value in the local culture of the Alta Valle del Reno, a mountain borderland between Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna (Italy)

Traditional alcoholic beverages (TABs) have only received marginal attention from researchers and ethnobotanists so far, especially in Italy. This work is focused on plant-based TABs in the Alta Valle del Reno...

Authors: Teresa Egea, Maria Adele Signorini, Luca Ongaro, Diego Rivera, Concepción Obón de Castro and Piero Bruschi

Engaging indigenous and academic knowledge on bees in the Amazon: implications for environmental management and transdisciplinary research

This paper contributes to the development of theoretical and methodological approaches that aim to engage indigenous, technical and academic knowledge for environmental management. We present an exploratory an...

Authors: Simone Athayde, John Richard Stepp and Wemerson C. Ballester

Formal education, previous interaction and perception influence the attitudes of people toward the conservation of snakes in a large urban center of northeastern Brazil

The attitudes and perceptions of people toward animals are influenced by sociodemographic factors, such as formal education and gender, and by personal experience. Understanding these interactions is critical ...

Authors: Luan Tavares Pinheiro, João Fabrício Mota Rodrigues and Diva Maria Borges-Nojosa

The symbolic efficacy of medicinal plants: practices, knowledge, and religious beliefs amongst the Nalu healers of Guinea-Bissau

In attempting to understand how the use of medicinal plants is symbolically valued and transformed according to specific cosmologies, we gain valuable insight into the ethnopharmacologial practices, in terms o...

Authors: Amélia Frazão-Moreira

Beyond food and medicine, but necessary for life, too: other folk plant uses in several territories of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands

Ethnobotanical academic research, particularly in European industrialised countries, has been, and is, mostly focused on folk uses of food and medicinal plants. Nevertheless, other uses, as may well be suppose...

Authors: Airy Gras, Teresa Garnatje, M. Àngels Bonet, Esperança Carrió, Marina Mayans, Montse Parada, Montse Rigat and Joan Vallès

Public perceptions of snakes and snakebite management: implications for conservation and human health in southern Nepal

Venomous snakebite and its effects are a source of fear for people living in southern Nepal. As a result, people have developed a negative attitude towards snakes, which can lead to human-snake conflicts that ...

Authors: Deb Prasad Pandey, Gita Subedi Pandey, Kamal Devkota and Matt Goode

Wild food plants and fungi used in the mycophilous Tibetan community of Zhagana (Tewo County, Gansu, China)

The aim of the study was to investigate knowledge and use of wild food plants and fungi in a highland valley in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Region on the north-eastern edges of the Tibetan Plateau.

Authors: Jin Kang, Yongxiang Kang, Xiaolian Ji, Quanping Guo, Guillaume Jacques, Marcin Pietras, Nasim Łuczaj, Dengwu Li and Łukasz Łuczaj

Fishers’ knowledge on the coast of Brazil

Although fishers’ knowledge has been recently considered into management programmes, there is still the need to establish a better understanding of fishers’ perceptions and cognition. Fishers can provide novel...

Authors: Alpina Begossi, Svetlana Salivonchyk, Priscila F. M. Lopes and Renato A. M. Silvano

Traditional use and management of NTFPs in Kangchenjunga Landscape: implications for conservation and livelihoods

Non-timber Forest Products (NTFPs), an important provisioning ecosystem services, are recognized for their contribution in rural livelihoods and forest conservation. Effective management through sustainable ha...

Authors: Yadav Uprety, Ram C. Poudel, Janita Gurung, Nakul Chettri and Ram P. Chaudhary

The changing ethnoecological cobweb of white truffle (Tuber magnatum Pico) gatherers in South Piedmont, NW Italy

Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) related to truffles represents an under-investigated area of research in ethnobiology. Nevertheless, truffles, in a few southern European areas, and notably in South P...

Authors: Andrea Pieroni

Folk knowledge of wild food plants among the tribal communities of Thakht-e-Sulaiman Hills, North-West Pakistan

Indigenous communities of the Thakht-e-Sulamian hills reside in the North-West tribal belt of Pakistan, where disadvantaged socio-economic frames, lack of agricultural land and food insecurity represent crucia...

Authors: Khalid Ahmad and Andrea Pieroni

Do artisanal fishers perceive declining migratory shorebird populations?

This paper discusses the results of ethno-ornithological research conducted on the local ecological knowledge (LEK) of artisanal fishers in northeast Brazil between August 2013 and October 2014.

Authors: Luciano Pires Andrade, Horasa Maria Lima Silva-Andrade, Rachel Maria Lyra-Neves, Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque and Wallace Rodrigues Telino-Júnior

Rapid assessment of insect fauna based on local knowledge: comparing ecological and ethnobiological methods

The rapid assessment of biodiversity making use of surveys of local knowledge has been successful for different biological taxa. However, there are no reports on the testing of such tools for sampling insect ...

Authors: Daniele Cristina de Oliveira Lima, Marcelo Alves Ramos, Henrique Costa Hermenegildo da Silva and Angelo Giuseppe Chaves Alves

An ethnobotanical analysis of parasitic plants (Parijibi) in the Nepal Himalaya

Indigenous biocultural knowledge is a vital part of Nepalese environmental management strategies; however, much of it may soon be lost given Nepal’s rapidly changing socio-ecological climate. This is particula...

Authors: Alexander Robert O’Neill and Santosh Kumar Rana

Acknowledgement of manuscript reviewers 2015

The editors of Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine would like to thank all our reviewers who have contributed to the journal in Volume 11 (2015).

Authors: Andrea Pieroni

A survey of wild plant species for food use in Sicily (Italy) – results of a 3-year study in four Regional Parks

This paper illustrates the results of a study carried out in four Regional Parks of Sicily (Italy), concerning traditional knowledge on food use of wild plant species. The main aims of the paper were: (i) to v...

Authors: Mario Licata, Teresa Tuttolomondo, Claudio Leto, Giuseppe Virga, Giuseppe Bonsangue, Ignazio Cammalleri, Maria Cristina Gennaro and Salvatore La Bella

Erratum to: Assessment of wild leafy vegetables traditionally consumed by the ethnic communities of Manipur, northeast India

Authors: Surjata Konsam, Biseshwori Thongam and Arun Kumar Handique

Traditional knowledge and its transmission of wild edibles used by the Naxi in Baidi Village, northwest Yunnan province

The collection and consumption of wild edibles is an important part in livelihood strategies throughout the world. There is an urgent need to document and safeguard the wild food knowledge, especially in remot...

Authors: Yanfei Geng, Yu Zhang, Sailesh Ranjitkar, Huyin Huai and Yuhua Wang

Assessment of wild leafy vegetables traditionally consumed by the ethnic communities of Manipur, northeast India

The NE region of India falls in the global hotspot of biodiversity. Wild edible plants (WEPs) are widely consumed in the daily diet of the local people. WEPs are critical for the sustenance of ethnic communiti...

Authors: Surjata Konsam, Biseshwori Thongam and Arun Kumar Handique