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PEOPLE A N D P L A N T S ' C O N S E R V A T I O N M A N U A L S
'People and Plants' is a joint initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. Partial funding has been provided by the Darwin
Initiative for the Survival of Species (Department of the Environment, UK).
The cover illustration shows German Cayti, a Chimane indigenous person, and Quico
Vaca, a park ranger, participating in an ethnobotany training workshop in the Beni
Biological Station in Bolivia. They are preparing to dig roots of the palm Scheela
princeps (used as a remedy for intestinal parasites) and demonstrating how to dry them
for phytochemical analysis. Photo: G.J. Martin.
ETHNOBOTANY
A methods manual
GARY]. MARTIN
WWF International
(World Wide Fund for Nature)
UNESCO
(United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation)
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or
criticism or review, as permitted under the UK Copyright Designs and Patents
Act, 1988, this publication may not be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction only in accordance with
the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK,
or in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the appropriate
Reproduction Rights Organization outside the UK. Enquiries concerning
reproduction outside the terms stated here should be sent to the publishers at the
London address printed on this page.
The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the
accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal
responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation is the only
UN agency with a mandate spanning the fields of science (including social sciences),
education, culture and communication. UNESCO has over 40 years of experience
in testing interdisciplinary approaches to solving environment and development
problems, in programs such as that on Man and the Biosphere (MAB). An interna-
tional network of biosphere reserves provide sites for conservation of biological
diversity, long-term ecological research, and testing and demonstrating approaches
to the sustainable use of natural resources.
DISCLAIMER
While the organizations concerned with the production of this manual firmly believe that its
subject is of great importance for conservation, they are not responsible for the detailed opinions
expressed.
Contents
2 Botany 27
2.1 Collecting and identifying plants 28
2.2 Preparing an ethnobotanical reference collection 59
2.3 Herbaria and the curation of plant specimens 59
2.4 Judging the completeness of a plant survey 61
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CONTENTS
4 Anthropology 95
4.1 Talking with local people 96
4.2 Searching for ethnobotanical information in folklore 112
4.3 Surveys and analytical tools 116
5 Ecology 137
5.1 Describing microenvironments and quantifying their plant
resources 138
5.2 Qualitative approaches 138
5.3 Bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative
approaches 155
5.4 Quantitative approaches 155
6 Economics 171
6.1 Economics and ethnobotany 172
6.2 The value of the environment 172
6.3 The value of forest products 173
6.4 Surveys of community and household economy 183
6.5 Local markets 191
7 Linguistics 201
7.1 Learning a local language 202
7.2 Collaborating with linguists 202
7.3 Where there is no linguist 203
7.4 Transcribing the local language 204
7.5 Linguistic analysis in ethnobotany 205
7.6 Free listing 213
7.7 Systematic surveys of local plant knowledge 215
7.8 Categories of ethnobiological classification 215
7.9 The correspondence between folk and scientific classification 218
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CONTENTS
References 253
Further reading 261
Index 263
ix
The 'People and
Plants'Initiative
This manual is one of a series, forming a contribution to the People and Plants
Initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Royal
Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK). The Initiative has received financial support from
the Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species (Department of the Environment,
UK) and the Tropical Forestry Program (US Department of Agriculture). The
main objective of the People and Plants Initiative is to build up the capacity for
work with local communities on botanical aspects of conservation, especially in
countries with tropical forests. The principal intention in the manual series is to
provide information which will assist botanists and others to undertake such
practical conservation work. Other components of the People and Plants Initiative
include demonstration projects in Malaysia, Madagascar, Uganda, Mexico, Brazil
and Bolivia, as well as support for workshops and publication of working papers.
This manual on ethnobotany is central to the People and Plants Initiative. It
contains descriptions of methods useful for working with local communities to
learn about their knowledge and uses of the plant world, for example to determine
which social groups within a village use which species of plants in what quantities
and for what purposes. Ethnobotanical studies can help identify conservation
issues, such as cases where rates of harvest of plants exceed rates of regrowth. The
fact that ethnobotany is, or should be, a collaborative venture between people in
local communities, including various specialists, and scientists means that a start
can be made to explore solutions to conservation and development issues, even as
information on plant uses is being collected.
Many people, especially in poorer countries, rely on wild-collected plants for
food, construction materials, fuelwood, medicine and many other purposes. Today,
there is often a decrease in the availability of wild plant resources, related to
increased human populations and the effects of competition with other forms of
land use. Ethnobotanical surveys can help local communities define their needs
for plant resources more clearly, thus assisting them to state their cases for
continuing access to certain areas of land or for provision of alternatives to wild
gathering, should this be necessary.
x
THE 'PEOPLE AND PLANTS' INITIATIVE
Alan Hamilton
Plants Conservation Officer
WWF International
xi
International panel of
advisors
Janis Alcorn
Biodiversity Support Program
United States of America
Brent Berlin
Department of Anthropology
University of California at Berkeley
United States of America
Javier Caballero
Botanical Garden, Institute of Biology
National Autonomous University of Mexico
Mexico
Elaine Elizabetsky
Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Bioscience
Federal University of Rio Grande do Sur
Brazil
Richard Ford
Department of Anthropology
University of Michigan
United States of America
Timothy Johns
Centre for Nutrition and the Environment of Indigenous Peoples
McGill University
Canada
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INTERNATIONAL PANEL OF ADVISORS
Virginia Nazarea-Sandoval
Department of Anthropology
University of California at Santa Cruz
United States of America
Darrell Posey
St. Anthony's College
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
Pei Sheng-ji
Kunming Institute of Botany
People's Republic of China
Ghillean Prance
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
United Kingdom
xiii
Internal panel of
advisors
Alejandro de Avila
Field Representative, Mexican Program
WWF-US
Phillip Cribb
Acting Head, Economic Botany and Conservation
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Anthony Cunningham
Coordinator, People and Plants Initiative
Malcolm Hadley
Man and the Biosphere Program
UNESCO
Alan Hamilton
Plants Conservation Officer
WWF - International
Michel Pimbert
Head, Biodiversity Department
WWF - International
xiv
INTERNAL PANEL OF ADVISORS
Nat Quansah
WWF Aires Protegees
Madagascar
Charles Stirton
Deputy Director
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
xv
Foreword
Ghillean T Prance
Director
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
xvi
Preface
xvii
PREFACE
xviii
PREFACE
A dedication
A. Barrera, one of the first promoters of ethnobotany in Mexico, wrote:
The best ethnobotanist would be a member of an ethnic minority who,
trained in both botany and anthropology, would study ... the traditional
knowledge, cultural significance, and the management and uses of the flora.
And it would be even better - for him and his people - if his study could
result in economic and cultural benefits for his own community.
This book is dedicated to those aspiring ethnobotanists who set out to record
and apply ecological knowledge among their own people.
The manual is also dedicated to my family, who have endured with patience
my long hours at the computer and my frequent trips abroad. I hope that they will
increasingly share in the fruits of my work.
Paris, France
February 1994
xix
Introduction
xx
INTRODUCTION
xxi
INTRODUCTION
stances there are advantages in the team approach, involving specialists in various
disciplines such as plant taxonomy, anthropology, linguistics, economic botany
and others, working together to achieve more detailed and reliable results.
This manual describes the basic concepts, skills and techniques that guide
collection of quality data in the field. The style and content are designed for field
workers - including park rangers, university students, cultural promoters and
nature guides - who are beginning their first research project. I hope the manual
will also be useful to seasoned ethnobotanists and colleagues of related disciplines.
The manual is to be used in designing projects which yield not only accurate
information, but also practical results that can be applied to community develop-
ment and biological conservation. It is intended for those who need to gather
ethnobotanical data in a few weeks or months as well as those who can dedicate
many years of research to a single area. Although focused on fieldwork, the manual
offers advice on ways of following up field studies by consulting herbaria, libraries
and museums as well as working with specialized colleagues in research laboratories.
In order to make the manual accessible to people from various educational
backgrounds, I have left the text free of conventions of scientific writing such as
footnotes. I mention by name the many researchers who have contributed to the
ideas presented in the manual and in the bibliography I list some of the books and
articles they have written. All technical terms are highlighted and defined when
first used. Terms that are transcribed from indigenous languages are both high-
lighted and italicized, such as ojts, the Mixe word for 'herb'. Words from languages
such as Spanish and French are simply italicized.
The first chapter gives a basic description of data gathering and hypothesis-test-
ing. Chapters 2 through 7 form the core of the manual, exploring the contribution
to ethnobotany from the diverse fields of botany, ethnopharmacology, anthropol-
ogy, ecology, economics and linguistics. Chapter 8 explores the link between
ethnobotany, biodiversity conservation and community development.
Throughout the manual, I often turn to the case studies I know best - the
ethnobotanical inventories I am carrying out with Chinantec and Mixe-speaking
people in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca and with Dusun people who live around
Kinabalu Park in Sabah, Malaysia. The Sierra Norte, approximately 300 kilome-
ters long and 80 kilometers wide, ranges from 320 meters to nearly 3400 meters
above sea level. The region comprises 3 distritos and 59 municipios that are found
between 16°45' Nand 18°10' N latitude and 96°06' Wand 98°30' W longitude,
south of the Tropic of Cancer. Santiago Comaltepec, a highland Chinantec
municipality in the Sierra Norte, includes some 2000 residents who inhabit nearly
200 square kilometers of communal lands and private property. Totontepec is a
highland Mixe municipality which includes some 320 km2 of territory and over
5300 inhabitants.
Mount Kinabalu - in Sabah, Malaysia - is the highest mountain between the
Himalayas and New Guinea. Rising to 4101 meters in northern Borneo, it is the
xxii
INTRODUCTION
xxiii
INTRODUCTION
others lacks rigor, whereas labelling some people 'traditional' may promote the
mistaken notion that their partners are more modem.
Throughout the text, I use the terms traditional knowledge or folk knowledge
to refer to what local people know about the natural environment, whereas I
consider scientific knowledge as information derived from research. These terms
are widely understood and accepted by ethnobotanists, who understand that
traditional knowledge has sometimes been acquired recently, some scientific
knowledge is derived from Indo-European traditional beliefs and folk knowledge
demonstrates much scientific rigor [8,68,158].
In creating a dichotomy between scientific and folk knowledge, we are apt to
evoke both old stereotypes and new controversies. Some people think that science
provides the correct model of the natural world and should be adopted by
everybody. For this reason, they give little credit to self-taught naturalists who lack
a formal education. Others feel that the right to cultural self-determination is
pre-eminent and that science can only corrupt the purity of indigenous knowledge.
Ethnoecologists do not seek to judge systems of knowledge, declaring one
superior to another. Their research has revealed both the wealth of detailed
information contained in folk systems of natural science and the utility of using
scientific classification as a looking glass through which various ind igenous systems
can be observed and compared. By employing the techniques described in this
manual, we can bring our understanding and appreciation of traditional knowledge
into sharper focus.
xxiv