BAHIR DAR UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY

Ethnobotany assignment presentation on :

Ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants in Farta Wereda,
south Gonder zone of Amhara region, Ethiopia)

By: Gebru Equar

Supervisor :Berhanu Abraha(PhD)

March 2012
SOURCE:BIODIVERSITY AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS
1.Introduction
♦Ethiopia is a land of great topographical
diversity (IBC, 2008)

♦This environmental mosaic results in

the diversity of plants and animal life

♦people of Farta Wereda have traditional

practices in medicinal plants
 Cont’d…
♦ Healing in Ethiopian traditional medicine
is also concerned with:
♦ protection and promotion of human
▪ physical
▪ spiritual
▪ social
▪ mental and
▪ material wellbeing

Kebede Deribe et al., 2006

1.1.Objective of the Study
I.General Objective
♦To study and document traditional
medicinal plants, their management and
conservation associated with the indigenous
plant knowledge
 II. Specific Objectives
♦ To identify and record traditionally
important medicinal plants for the
treatment of human and livestock
ailments

♦ To document the indigenous knowledge

of the people on the use of medicinal
plants in the study site
2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
Climate and Vegetation Types
The Wereda is classified as

♦ 44% Dega

♦ 56% Woina Dega (FWOARD, 2009).

 Cont’d…

klimadiagram of the Study Area from 1997-2006 at

Debre-Tabor Station (Data Source: National
Meteorological Agency)
 Cont’d…
Age Group and Gender of Informants
 Cont’d…
Reconnaissance Survey

♦ Reconnaissance survey was conducted from

October 20 to November 1, 2009

♦20 representative sites were selected from the

39 Kebeles
 Cont’d…
Selection of Informants
Cont’d…
 Cont’d…
Ethical Consideration
♦ Gathering the old wisdom among local people
would offer opportunity for paying respect to
them
♦ It would enhance self-esteem among young
generation (Emadi, 2005)
♦ It allows to manage the local indigenous
knowledge
 cont’d …
♦ Special ethical considerations were
taken
♦ By telling the fact and convincing each
informant following his or her culture
strictly
 Cont’d…
Voucher Specimen Collection

♦ Specimens collected from various habitats

♦ Identification of specimens was carried out
both in the:
●field and
●National Herbarium
♦ Nomenclature determination was carried
♦ specimens were kept at National Herbarium
 Cont’d…
Ethnobotanical Data Analysis
The Informant Consensus Factor (ICF)

♦ ICF was calculated for each category to

identify the agreements of the informants

♦ calculated as follows:
ICF= nur-nt / nur-1 (Heinerich et al., 1998).
 cont’d…
Preference Ranking:
♦ The key informants were selected to identify
the best preferred medicinal plants based on :
● their personal preference or
● perceived degree of importance in the
Community
♦ Finally, the values were summed up and the
ranks given to each plant
 cont’d…
Direct Matrix Ranking:

♦ Informants were asked to order the items by

considering several attributes one at a time
▪ highest no is = the most preferred item
▪ lowest to the least one
♦ Direct matrix ranking exercise was conducted
for 7 multipurpose medicinal plants
 cont’d…
Vegetation Description
♦ Two approaches were used in describing
the vegetation of the study area
1.Emic categorization technique
2.Etic classification technique of
ethnobotany
 3.RESULT and Discussion
Categorization of Vegetation
Alem saga forest in kolay-dengors
 cont’d…
Medicinal Plants in the Study Area
Ethnomedicinal plants used to treat human and
livestock ailments
 cont’d…
♦ Distribution and diversity of medicinal plants in
natural habitat and homegarden
 cont’d…
Diversity of habits
 cont’d…
♦ Conditions of preparations of traditional
medicine
♦ Plant parts used and modes of preparation
Plant Part Used in Preparation of Remedies
♦ Types of Preparation of Herbal Medicine
 Dosage and route of administration
Routes of Administration of TMP
 cont’d…
Dosages were estimated using
●lid spoons,
● pinches or handfuls (‘woket’) (for
powder preparations) cups (‘sini’ or
‘finjal’),
●‘tassa’ and
● glasses (birchiko) (for liquid
mixtures)
 Informant consensus (medicinal plant use report)
.Medicinal Plant Species with High Informant Consensus
.Preference Ranking of Medicinal Plants used to treat
Stomachache
Threats and conservation of medicinal plants

Ranking of Threats on Medicinal Plants (values 1-5: 1 is the least

destructive threat and 5 is the most destructive one)
 Method of preparation
♦ During preparations additives like:
▪ sugar
▪ honey
▪ tea, and
▪ coffee were used in most
♦ This is to reduce the bitterness of the
medicine and initiate the patient to take it
medicinal plants used in ferta wereda
Stephania abyssinica /etse-eyesus (Amh.)
♦ All parts of the plant are used to treat
stomach disorders ( Demissew, 2000)
▪ ascariasis,
▪ wart,
▪ vomiting and
▪ to upgrade intelligence (mental activity)
 Cont’d…
Allium sativum (Alliaceae), Nech
Shinkurt (Amh.)
♦ It is used to treat
▪ cough
▪ malaria
▪ stomach trouble, and
▪‘lashegn’
▪ for malaria and pneumonia (Abiyot
Berhanu, 2006),
 CONCLUSION
♦ It can be concluded that, the
documentation of this traditional knowledge
is inevitable to throw light in to the field of
herbal research
♦ Herbs and shrubs were found to be the
most dominant in the preparation of
traditional remedies
♦ people of Farta have traditional practices
which they accumulated for generations to
treat both human and livestock ailments.
 Criticism

♦ Here we will forward critical assessment

focusing on the weaknesses and strengths of this
article
 Positive sides of the article
1.The abstract is good for it is written in a single paragraph
(rather than classifying into background, objective,
materials and methods, results, and conclusions)

2.The materials and methods part nicely describs study area

and its descriptions such as the temperature, rainfall,
altitude, population with maps and klimadiagram

3.The discussion part is good with more comparisons of

others’ work

4.The research result will serve as potential baseline data

for further detail studies
 Negative side

1.To start with the title it is better omitting the article ‘an’
(ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants in farta wereda,
south gonder zone of amhara region, Ethiopia)

2.The article does not state clearly the knowledge gap

3.The conclusion would have been better be separated from

the recommendation part as independent part
 Cont’d…
4.The citation methodology would have been
interesting, had it been numbered so as be easily
accessible while referring in the bibliography part

5.There was no p-value(no specified significance value)

6.Discussion part lacks clarification

7.Some references are not latest ones (published some

thirty two years back, 1980) too old to use as a
reference
THANK YOU!!