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to

People and Plants Initiative

International Plants Conservation Unit

WWF-UK

Panda House, Catteshall Lane

Godalming

Surrey GU7 1XR

United Kingdom

This series of working papers

is intended to provide information and

to generate fruitful

discussion

on key issues

in the sustainable

and equitable use

of plant resources.

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11PEOPLE AND PLANTS WORKING PAPER - MARCH 2003

Th e p u rp oses an dTh e p u rp oses and

teach in g of Ap p liedteach in g of Ap p lied

EthnobotanyEthnobotanyA.C. Hamilton, Pei Shengji, J. Kessy, Ashiq A. Khan,S. Lagos-Witte & Z.K. Shinwari

FacultyofFor

estEcology

andForestryS

cience

Centre for Anthropological Studies

Facultyo

fMedicine

Statistics and Biometrics

Department

Faculty of Social Sciences

Department ofEthnobotany

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The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this publication do not implythe expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of WWF concerning the legal status of anycountry, territory, city, or area of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers orboundaries. The opinions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not commitany Organization.

Photos:pp 5, 15, 16 down, 46, 50, 55: Alan Hamiltonp 7: Sonia Lagos-Wittepp 8, 9: David Medina and Rodolfo Peapp 16 up, 23, 25: Robert Hftp 20: Peter von Sengbusch

Cover drawing: Annette Aiscan-Schmid

Published in 2003 by WWF

Edited by Martin WaltersDesign: Ivette FabbriLayout: Martina Hft

WWF 2003

Recommended citation: Hamilton, A.C., Pei Shengji, Kessy, J., Khan, Ashiq A., Lagos-Witte, S. andShinwari, Z.K. The purposes and teaching of Applied Ethnobotany. People and Plants working paper11. WWF, Godalming, UK.

An electronic version of this document can be downloaded fromhttp://www.rbgkew.org.uk/peopleplants/wp/wp10/index.html

Authors addresses:

Hamilton, A.C.WWF Plants Conservation OfficerPanda House, Weyside ParkCatteshall LaneGodalming Surrey GU7 1XRUNITED KINGDOM

Pei ShengjiDepartment of EthnobotanyKunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy

of SciencesHeilongtan, KunmingYunnan 650204CHINA

Kessy, J.F.Sokoine University of AgricultureP.O. Box 3226MorogoroUNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

Khan, Ashiq A.WWF-Pakistan,UPO Box 1439PeshawarPAKISTAN

Lagos-Witte, S.Coordinadora General, Grupo EtnobotnicoLatinoamericano (GELA)Apartado Postal 21-9Santo DomingoREPBLICA DOMINICANA

Shinwari, Z.K.WWF-Pakistan,UPO Box 1439PeshawarPAKISTAN
http://www.rbgkew.org.uk/peopleplants/wp/wp10/index.htmlmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]://www.rbgkew.org.uk/peopleplants/wp/wp10/index.htmlmailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

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PEOPLE AND PLANTS WORKING PAPER 11, MARCH 2003THE PURPOSES AND TEACHING OF APPLIED ETHNOBOTANY

A.C. HAMILTON, PEI SHENGJI, J. KESSY, ASHIQ A. KHAN, S. LAGOS-WITTE & Z.K. SHINWARI

2

Contents

1 Abstract

2 Contents

3 Rationale and methodology of this study

3 Why Applied Ethnobotany?4 Methodology

6 Ethnobotany: scope and status6 Ethnobotany: past and present7 Geographical coverage and themes8 Societies, networks and key events

11 Ethnobotany as a taught subject13 How Ethnobotany can be strengthened

17 Relevance of Applied Ethnobotany to Botany, Forestry,

Agriculture and Medicine17 Professions to which Applied Ethnobotany can contribute18 Botany: past and future20 Forestry: past and future22 Agriculture: past and future26 Medicine: past and future

33 Courses and programmes in Applied Ethnobotany:

matters to consider33 The challenges of interdisciplinarity35 Types of courses and programmes37 The purposes of courses and programmes37 Institutional contexts39 Enrolment requirements39 Student assessment and course evaluation40 Staffing41 Material resources

42 Core competences and their acquisition42 Knowledge43 Practical skills45 Attitudes and behaviour

47 Possible topics to cover in courses and programmes inApplied Ethnobotany

49 Short professional courses

50 Acknowledgements

51 References

56 Appendix 1: Contributors to this project

60 Appendix 2: Publications, videos and website of the People and Plants Initiative

63 Appendix 3: Possible subjects to cover within suggested topics in Applied

Ethnobotany

68 Appendix 4: Recommended topics of programmes in Ethnobotany

or Applied Ethnobotany according to various authors

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Why Applied Ethnobotany?

Ethnobotany has been defined as the disciplineconcerned with the interactions between peopleand plants (Jones, 1941). There are many aspectsof Ethnobotany, including the ways that peoplename and classify plants, the values placed onthem, their uses and their management. It reach-es across the natural and social sciences. Plantshave always been of central significance tohuman welfare and always will be. Plants pro-vide people with food, fuel and medicine, as wellas materials for construction and the manufactureof crafts and many other products. Their chemi-cal and genetic constituents are being increasing-

ly explored for human benefit. They are majorparts of the physical worlds which people inhab-it and in which they construct their realities.They lie at the base of food-webs, supportingmost other forms of life. They are essential ele-ments of ecological systems on all geographicalscales, helping provide us with equitable cli-mates, fertile soils and reliable supplies of water.The central role of plants in the everyday lives ofrural people is obvious in developing countries,with the daily round of activities revolvingaround agriculture, the care of domestic animals,

the gathering of fuelwood, the cooking and eat-ing of largely plant-based food, the constructionof buildings and fences, the use of herbal medi-cine, and so on.

Ethnobotany can be applied for many practi-cal purposes, among which McClatchey and hisco-authors have listed land-use development,agriculture, forestry, cultural conservation, edu-cation and the development of the health foodand herbal medicine industries (McClatchey etal., 1999). Our interest here is in AppliedEthnobotany, which we define as Ethnobotanyapplied to conservation and sustainable develop-ment. Applied Ethnobotany draws on both per-sonal (including traditional) and scientific formsof knowledge, allowing comparisons and inte-gration for the benefits of conservation and sus-tainable development. In the past, ethnobotanicalstudies have all too often been just academicexercises or have served only external interests,with the results benefiting neither local peoplenor conservation. Our approach is cross-discipli-nary, participatory, and geared towards localproblem-solving.

The fundamental strengths of applying the

approaches and methods of Applied Ethnobotanyare that:

They allow the knowledge, wisdom andpractices of local people to play fuller roles

in identifying and finding solutions to prob-lems of conservation and sustainable devel-opment.

Local people are involved fundamentally ininvestigations so that there is a betterchance of buy-in.

Realistic case-studies of ways of balancingconservation with use become available toinform the evolution of national and otherhigher level policies.

Among the particular challenges to whichApplied Ethnobotany can contribute are

(Campbell & Luckert, 2002; Cruells, 1994;Cunningham, 2001; Laird, 2002; Martin, 1995;Schultes & von Reis, 1995): Conservation of plants (including varieties

of crops) and other forms of biologicaldiversity.

Botanical inventories and assessments ofthe conservation status of species.

Sustainability in supplies of wild plantresources, including of non-timberproducts.

Enhanced food security, nutrition and

healthcare. Preservation, recovery and diffusion of

local botanical knowledge and wisdom. Reinforcement of ethnic and national

identity. Greater security of land tenure and resource

ownership. Assertion of the rights of local and

indigenous people. Agreements on the rights of communities

in protected areas. Identification and development of new eco-

nomic products from plants, for instancecrafts, foods, herbal medicines and horti-cultural plants.

Contributions to new drug development.

The betterment of rural livelihoods is a com-plex task and it is not suggested that AppliedEthnobotany is a universal panacea. Naturalresource issues are only part of wider livelihoodissues, and botanical issues only part of naturalresource issues. There will always be uncertain-ties about how people will perceive their futureoptions and the livelihood strategies that they

will adopt. However, what is certain is that mostrural people in developing countries will contin-

Rationale and methodology of this study

3

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4

ue to be heavily reliant on local wild plants.Further, it is the poorest people, in particular,who will remain most dependent on resources ofwild plants and who stand most to gain if theseresources are managed in sustainable ways.Applied Ethnobotany can therefore play a signif-icant part in the battle to relieve poverty.

The intention of the present paper is to pro-vide information useful to those wishing todevelop courses or programmes in AppliedEthnobotany. Many people have been consultedto produce the present synthesis, which certainlywill require revision with time and as other expe-riences are incorporated. Each course or pro-gramme is expected to differ in detail, mouldedas appropriate to the contexts of particulardepartments, universities and countries orregions. On the other hand, it is noteworthy thatfindings of the consultations undertaken for thepresent project show an unexpected degree ofagreement about the contents of courses and pro-grammes in Applied Ethnobotany and on how

they should be taught. There appears to be anemerging consensus.

Ethnobotany is sometimes seen as a softsubject, but, actually, it can and should be intel-lectually demanding for both staff and students.As Janice Alcorn has commented (Alcorn,1995): The ethnobotanical field workerobserves the living system of which plant use isa part. Careful observation is not, however, aneasy job. It requires looking at human activitiesand organisations from a plants viewpoint andlooking at plants and plant communities from a

culturally informed as well as a scientific per-spective. Only by looking at the material in thisway can the ethnobotanical field worker recog-nise links between the subunits investigated byresearchers in different disciplines. Methods ofdifferent disciplines reveal different aspects ofthe system under study . It is up to the field-experienced worker to integrate the data and spotnew areas requiring investigation.

Ethnobotanists are faced with a continuinglearning process throughout their careers. Thereis much to gain from the sharing of experiencesand ideas within countries and internationally,

though barriers of language remain a challenge,as between anglophone and francophone Africa(Hft & Hft, 1997). Networking is an invalu-able tool. No-one has all the answers. We believethat progress in developing courses or pro-grammes in Applied Ethnobotany will dependgreatly on the sharing of experiences and thelearning of lessons by those who are practicallyinvolved.

It is anticipated that Ethnobotany willbecome a powerful field of scientific activity inthe 21st Century (Botanical Society of America,

1995). Unusually for a modern academic subject,there are particular opportunities for innovative

contributions from ethnobotanists from develop-ing countries. The advantages of such ethnob-otanists can include personal experience of theproblems that rural people face, intuitive appre-ciation of local cultures, and knowledge of locallanguages. Ethnobotanical research requires rela-tively little equipment and is cheap comparedwith many other fields of science.

Ethnobotany is a key subject for conserva-tion and sustainable development. Capacity-building in Applied Ethnobotany is urgentlyneeded in developing countries because of theintimate links between rural people and localplants. This is not to say that AppliedEthnobotany is not also useful as a taught subjectin industrial countries, including to train peopleable to explore the many, largely hidden, eco-nomic dependencies of people in such countrieson plants and the implications of consumer cul-tures for conservation. Furthermore, some eth-nobotanists from industrialised countries willbecome involved in collaborative research with

colleagues in the developing world.Sonia Lagos-Witte has written of the

urgency of developing Applied Ethnobotany,noting (Lagos-Witte, 1994): The rapidity with which environmental

damage occurs today. The rapid loss of floristic and cultural

diversity. The state of absolute material poverty of

most of the indigenous and peasant peopleof tropical regions.

The demands of these people for solutions

to their problems and to take active roles inmaking decisions about the management ofnatural resources and about the legal statusof their traditions and knowledge.

Methodology

The present document is a product of the Peopleand Plants Initiative of WWF and UNESCO,with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, as anAssociate. Many people have contributed to itsformulation (Appendix 1). Several meetingsand other activities were organised to provide

opportunities for ethnobotanists and other inter-ested people to present their experiences andideas about how Applied Ethnobotany shouldbe taught: A meeting was held on 20-21 August 2001

organised by Professor Pei Shengji atKunming Institute of Botany, ChineseAcademy of Sciences, to discuss curriculain Ethnobotany for China (Pei Shengji,2002a).

Sonia Lagos-Witte and Alan Hamiltonorganised a workshop on curriculum devel-

opment in Applied Ethnobotany on 21-23February 2000 at the Jardn Botnico

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5

Nacional Rafael Ma. Moscoso, DominicanRepublic (Lagos-Witte, 2002). This work-shop was for representatives of GrupoEtnobotnico Latinoamericano (GELA),members of which attended from a numberof countries in Latin America.

A workshop was organised on 3-4 May2002 by WWF-Pakistan and WWF-UK atNathiagali, Pakistan, mainly to bringtogether experiences and ideas from peoplein Pakistan, but with attendance also byethnobotanists from Uganda. Written con-tributions were received from several peo-ple from other countries (Shinwari,Hamilton & Khan, 2002).

A session on curriculum development inApplied Ethnobotany was organised on 20September 2002 by Professor Pei Shengjiand Alan Hamilton at the 8th InternationalCongress of the International Society ofEthnobiology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

John Kessy of Sokoine University of

Agriculture, Tanzania, undertook a surveyof experiences and views about the teach-

ing of Ethnobotany in Kenya, Uganda andTanzania, concentrating on Departments ofBotany and Forestry (Kessy, 2002).

A presentation on curriculum developmentin Applied Ethnobotany was made by AlanHamilton on 15 October 2002 during theNational Symposium on Ethnobotany andEconomic Development in China, thisbeing the first national-level meeting onEthnobotany to be held in the country.

The project has benefited from some earlierexperiences associated with the People andPlants Initiative. Sonia Lagos-Witte and collabo-rators carried out a survey in 1995 to determinethe status and opportunities for teaching ofApplied Ethnobotany in Central America(Lagos-Witte et al., 1995). A similar study wasundertaken later in Malaysia (Saleh, 2000). ThePeople and Plants Initiative has, itself, run manycourses in Applied Ethnobotany, principallyshort courses for professionals, but also a more

extensive three-part regional course in South-east Asia in 1997-1999.



Contributors to a session on curriculum development in Applied Ethnobotany on 20 September 2002 at the 8th Congress of the International

Society of Ethnobiology, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From left to right: 1. Dr Khasbagan (China), 2. Dr Fasil Kebebeh (Ethiopia, Congress Organiser),3. Prof Pei Shengji (China), 4. Dr Chusie Trisonthi (Thailand), 5. Dr Esezah Kakudidi (Uganda), 6. Prof Hu Huabin (China), 7. Prof Sanyu Devi Joshi(Nepal), 8. Dr Alan Hamilton (UK), 9. Prof Abhoy Kumar Das (Nepal).

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Ethnobotany: past and present

The first published use of the term Ethno-botany was by John Harshberger in 1896, refer-

ring to a botanical culture revealed througharchaeological research in the Mancos Canyon,Colorado, USA (Harshberger, 1896). From thisstart, the scope of the subject has expanded toinclude studies of modern cultures, greater inter-disciplinarity and, more recently, greater atten-tion to its applications to conservation and sus-tainable development. It is a science that hasbeen rapidly evolving, a state of affairs that willlikely continue for some time. Many early stud-ies, as some still are today, were largely or entire-ly descriptive, being concerned essentially withdocumenting the local names and uses of plants(Cunningham, 1997; Etkin & Meilleur, 1993;Fernndez, 2002; Fonseca, 2000; Martinez,2002). Attention was commonly directedtowards more indigenous communities ratherthan peasants (i.e. non-indigenous local people)(Prance, 1995), not infrequently with a biastowards medicinal plants. By and large, thesestudies have proved of little practical value to thelocal people who provided the information. Forexample, many studies of medicinal plants inPolynesia have been insufficiently interdiscipli-nary and with inadequate attention to local con-

cepts of medical conditions to be of much valuefor devising improvements in healthcare (Etkin& Meilleur, 1993). Not infrequently,Ethnobotany has been used as a means of extract-ing knowledge of the uses of plants, especially asmedicines, from communities, with the aim ofdeveloping new commercial products elsewhere.

Over the last decade in particular,Ethnobotany has tended to become more analyt-ical, quantitative, cross-disciplinary and multi-institutional. Ethnobotanists are now much moreengaged with questions of conservation, sustain-

able development, cultural affirmation, and theintellectual property rights of local and indige-nous people (Botanical Society of America,1995; Fernndez, 2002; Martinez, 2002). Agrowing inclusion of ecology is leading to newinsights into the origin and dynamics of tropicalecosystems (Prance, 1995). Several stages in thehistorical progress of the subject in Africa havebeen recognised (Cunningham, 1997):1. an initial emphasis on recording vernacular

names and uses;2. a broadening to include more work on

nutritional and chemical analyses of edibleand wild plants;

3. investigations into the quantities of materi-

als used and/or the frequency of use (fromabout 1960);

4. quantitative studies of human impacts onplant resources, particularly those entering

commercial trade (from about 1990); and5. valuations of plant resources (from about

1995).Worldwide, some of the major developmentshave been: A widening of Ethnobotany from a focus

on indigenous people to embrace all sec-tions of humanity.

A greater use of anthropological methodsto comprehend better how, and why, peopleclassify, value, and give symbolic signifi-cance to plants.

A growing awareness that ethnobotanicalknowledge should be appreciated as part ofwider knowledge-systems or cognitivematrices.

Greater scientific rigour in terms of settingand testing hypotheses, and quantification.

More emphasis on participatory researchaimed directly at the identification and res-olution of practical problems of conserva-tion and sustainable development.

Greater recognition of the intellectual prop-erty rights of local and indigenous people,especially respect for secret medical

knowledge and acknowledgement of theneed to provide a fair return of benefits tothe local level when research aims at theidentification of new commercial products.

Wade Davis has expounded on some of the chal-lenges facing contemporary ethnobotanists(Davis, 1995): Ethnobotanists must record notonly lists of plant uses but a vision of life itself.This is the second and much more difficult task -to understand not just how a specific group ofpeople uses plants but how that group perceivesthem, how it interprets those perceptions, how

those perceptions influence the activities ofmembers of that society, and how those activi-ties, in turn, influence the ambient vegetation andthe ecosystem upon which the society depends.

Apart from its theoretical significance,Ethnobotany is emerging as a subject of greatpractical value. Its application can lead to astrengthening of cultural diversity and conserva-tion, greater sustainability in the exploitation ofplant resources, and the development of newplant products. It has helped in Latin America(and doubtless elsewhere) to change the image oflocal people so that organisations that make deci-sions about development have more respect forthe cultures and authority of rural communities,



6

Ethnobotany: scope and status

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resulting in a search for ways to collaborateunder conditions of respect and equality(Robineau, 1996). Ethnobotanical research cansometimes be a form of cultural rescue(Caballero, 1986). It enables the recording anddocumentation of traditional knowledge aboutthe empirical uses of plants - knowledge which iswidely disappearing. The rescue and documenta-tion of traditional knowledge can contribute tothe strengthening of indigenous cultures. It canresult in the demonstration of the value of cultur-al diversity within the context of the processes ofglobalisation, modernisation and integration ofindigenous peoples into national societies(Robineau, 1996).

The People and Plants Initiative was startedin 1992, as a partnership between WWF,UNESCO and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.Its aim has been to build capacity in Ethnobotanyamong individuals and institutions in the devel-oping world. It has tried to contribute to thedevelopment of Applied Ethnobotany and its

practical adoption around the world. Activitieshave included the training of young ethnob-otanists, support for the development of net-works and courses, and the dissemination ofcase-studies and methodologies through the pro-duction and distribution of publications andvideos (Appendix 2). There have been nationalor regional programmes with co-ordinated seriesof activities in several countries in Africa, Asia,Latin America, and the South Pacific.

Ethnobotany is closely related to severalother subjects. One of these, Economic Botany

(known as Plant Resources in China), has beenestablished longer. It concentrates on plant prod-ucts and their uses. The core components ofcourses in Economic Botany cover categories ofplant product, such as wood, resin and fragrances,with less attention given to the social and cultur-al dimensions of using and managing plantresources than is the case with Ethnobotany. Inpractice, there can be considerable overlap in thecontents of courses in the two subjects(McClatchey et al., 1999). Economic Botany issimilar to Wild Plant Utilisation, a full pro-gramme of which is taught at Northeast China

Agricultural University. Ethnoecology, a termintroduced in 1954 (Conklin, 1954) and moreconcerned with the ecological basis of humanrelations with the environment, is less focused onbotanical aspects of the environment thanEthnobotany or Ethnobiology. ConservationBiology is more strictly concerned with conser-vation than Ethnobotany. In practice, courses inthe subject often have inadequate coverage, notonly of plants, but also of the social, cultural, eco-nomic and communication aspects of conserva-tion (Brown, 2001; Kanowski, 2001; Liras,

1994). These deficiencies are unfortunate, even ifthe prime interest of a conservation biologist is to

protect species of charismatic animals, becausethe retention of suitable habitat generally requiressupport from the local populace, and this supportis more likely to be forthcoming if conservation-

ists pay attention to the needs of local people forplant resources, so important to their livelihoods(Cunningham, 1996b; Wild & Mutebi, 1996).Medical Botany, once a major part of the educa-tion of doctors in Europe, is still taught in somecountries, for instance to students of integratedmedicine in China, and in more than 30 universi-ties and colleges teaching Traditional ChineseMedicine in the same country.

Geographical coverage

and themes

The aim in this section is to give an indication ofcurrent activities in Ethnobotany, at least forparts of the world for which syntheses haveproved more ready to hand. We realise that thisis an unbalanced account and apologise for itsdeficiencies. One of our reasons for includingthis section is to demonstrate the magnitude ofvariations between countries. We consider thedevelopment of national capacity in AppliedEthnobotany as critical. Ethnobotany is a univer-sal subject in terms of its theory, but it will con-tribute little to the intellectual life of a country orto the resolution of practical problems, unless itbecomes well embedded within educational andtraining institutions, and in practice. This meansthe emergence of a critical mass of national eth-nobotanists who are knowledgeable, active andethical. Thus, the development of courses andprogrammes within countries is vital.

The number of published studies in

Ethnobotany varies considerably across LatinAmerica (Caballero, 1986; GELA, 2002). A sur-



7

Ethnobotanists must record not

only lists of plant uses but a

vision of life itself...

Participants at a workshop on curriculum develop-ment in Applied Ethnobotany, 21-23 February 2002,

Dominican Republic.

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Table 1. Rank order (1=highest) of number of studies on different themes in Ethnobotany in Latin

America (Martinez, 1994). N = study by nationals; F = study by non-nationals;

All = all studies (by nationals, non-nationals, and nationality not recorded).

South America Central America Mexico Caribbean All Latin America

N F All N F All N F All N F All N F AllArchaeobotany 5 4 5 3 1 1 6 1 2 none none none 6 2 3

Medicinal plants 2 1 1 1 2 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1Edible plants 3 3 3 2 5 5 3 5" 6 2" 4 3 3 5 4Cognitive studies 9 7 8 9 9 10 8 7 8 none 8 8 9 8 8Forest use 7" 6 6 7" 6 6 7 9 7 2" 2 2 7 6 7Agroforestry systems 7" 8 7 5 7 7 1 5" 3 none 6 6" 4 7 6

and homegardensDomestication and 1 2 2 4 3 2 4 4 5 2" 5 5 2 3 2

origin of agricultureHistorical studies 6 9 9 none 8 8" 9 8 9 6 7 6" 8 9 9Market studies 10 10 10 7" none 8" 10 10 10 none none none 10 10 10General 4 5 4 6 4 4 5 3 4 5 3 4 5 4 5

vey, published in 1994, of articles on

Ethnobotany which have appeared in internation-al journals revealed that 41% of all studies inLatin America have been in South America, 14%in Central America, 36% in Mexico and 9% in theCaribbean ( = 2768) (Martinez, 1994). Mexicois easily the country with the greatest level ofactivity (36% of the total), followed by Peru(11%), Colombia (9%) and Guatemala (5%).There have been very few studies in the threeGuyanas, Nicaragua, El Salvador or Uruguay.Mexico witnessed a major expansion in researchin the 1970s and 1980s (Toledo, 1995). Another

indication of relative national strength ofEthnobotany in Latin America is the distributionof members of the Grupo EtnobotnicoLatinoamericano (GELA) (Table 2).

The survey of Miguel Angelo Martinezreferred to above allows a ranking of the numberof ethnobotanical studies in Latin America bytheme (Table 1). The rank-order is as follows (= 2768): (1) medicinal plants; (2) domesticationand origin of agriculture; (3) archaeobotany; (4)edible plants; (5) general ethnobotanical studies;(6) agroforestry and homegardens; (7) forest use;(8) cognitive studies; (9) historical studies; and(10) market surveys. There is little difference inthis rank-order between the major sub-regions(South America, Central America, Mexico, theCaribbean), except that archaeobotany is top ofthe order in Central America but last (with nostudies) in the Caribbean, and that forest useranks second in the Caribbean. Foreignresearchers were responsible for many of the ear-lier ethnobotanical studies carried out in LatinAmerica, these researchers having been mainlyfrom North America, the UK and France.Altogether, 52% of all studies recorded in this

survey were carried out by non-nationals and38% by nationals, national identity not being

recorded in the other cases. Taking the analysis

further and omitting the unrecorded group, thenit is clear that nationals are responsible for amuch greater percentage of studies in SouthAmerica (48%) and Mexico (47%) than inCentral America (21%) or the Caribbean (22%).The only countries in Latin America in whichnationals have been responsible for the majorityof studies are those lying in or close to theSouthern Cone (Argentina 90%; Brazil 67%;Chile 78%; Paraguay 61%; Uruguay 100%) and,additionally, Cuba (68%), Haiti (52%) andGuadeloupe (88%) (a French territory).

Two recent surveys carried out on behalf ofthe People and Plants Initiative have revealedsomething of the status of Ethnobotany in sub-

Table 2. Dis tribution of mem-

bers of Grupo

Etnobotnico Latino-

americano (GELA) in

various Latin American

countries (2002).

Argentina 50

Bolivia 7Brazil 70Chile 12Colombia 36Costa Rica 5Cuba 28Dominican Republic 4Ecuador 6El Salvador 2Honduras 6Mexico 208Nicaragua 3Panama 8Paraguay 2

Peru 45Puerto Rico 1Uruguay 2



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Saharan Africa. There is much variation in levelof activity between countries and types ofecosystem.

One of the surveys deals with Western andCentral Africa, in which the leading country inEthnobotany is Cameroon, followed by theDemocratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria(Dounias, Rodrigues & Petit, 2000). There havebeen very few studies in a number of countries,including Liberia, Mali and Mauritania. Abouthalf of all studies have been in the rainforest zoneand about a quarter each in the Sudanian andSahelian zones. Thirty per cent of studies con-cerned with the uses of plants have been on med-icinal plants and 26% on food plants.

The other survey covers Eastern andSouthern Africa (Hft & Hft, 1997). Nearly30% of studies have been carried out in savanna,followed in order of frequency by wetlands, mon-tane forest, woodland, lowland rainforest andthen a number of other vegetation types. Nearly50% of studies have been in protected areas, espe-

cially Forest Reserves and National Parks.In India, Ethnobotany emerged as a distinct

discipline in the early 1970s, when much docu-mentation of the uses of plants by tribal groups inCentral India was undertaken under the leader-ship of Professor S K Jain, Director of theBotanical Survey of India. The work was laterextended elsewhere, for instance into the south ofthe country. A training course in Ethnobotanywas initiated in 1988. Respect for Ethnobotany,as a significant subject for development, grewfrom the mid-1990s, with greater emphasis on

applications to rural problems. Research inEthnobotany has contributed greatly towardsdeveloping approaches for the enhancement ofthe use of indigenous knowledge in rural devel-opment. Interest in Ethnobotany has also beengrowing rapidly elsewhere in the subcontinent.Ethnobotanical research started in Nepal in about1970 and has since become a popular subject ofresearch (Joshi, 2002). As in India, there hasbeen movement in other countries of the subcon-tinent during the 1990s, away from just docu-mentation of local uses of plants towards moreparticipatory approaches to the identification and

solving of problems of plant conservation andsustainable use.

A survey of publications on Ethnobotany inMalaysia has shown the rank order of popularityof themes as: medicinal plants (57% of publica-tions); general Ethnobotany (23%); edible plants(8%); culture, customs and beliefs (5%); indige-nous crafts (3%); home-gardens (2%); householditems and clothing (1%); and spices (1%) (Saleh,2000). There has been a big increase in the num-ber of theses in Ethnobotany produced in institu-tions of higher learning during the last 30 years,

starting from only 4 in the 1970s, to 39 in the1980s and 76 in the 1990s. The concentration of

interest on medicinal plants is reflected in a biggrowth in the number of government research oruniversity institutions involved in research intonatural products. Eight of the 10 public universi-ties in Malaysia now have their own naturalproduct research laboratories. The main motivesbehind this development seem to be medical andcommercial, that is the identification of newbioactive chemicals, contained within Malaysianplants, of value for new medical products.Research in Ethnobotany has been unevenly dis-tributed by region and ethnic group, with moststudies being on the Malay and Chinese commu-nities in Peninsular Malaysia and few studies inSabah or Sarawak.

Ethnobotany became a recognised academicsubject in Thailand in 1990. Since then, 10 grad-uates have received MSc degrees from theDepartment of Biology, Chiang Mai University(Trisonthi & Trisonthi, 2002).

Modern Ethnobotany in China can be con-sidered to be rooted in research beginning in the

early 1960s on utilisation of wild plants and ontraditional medicine. These efforts, carried outthroughout the country, were designed for thedevelopment of botanically-related industries.The Barefoot Doctor Programme, starting in thelate 1960s and which aimed to bring more effec-tive medical services to the masses, was accom-panied by a national inventory of TraditionalChinese Medicine (TCM). Numerous handbookson many matters relating to TCM were produced,such as on the cultivation, harvesting, processingand uses of medicinal plants. It was not until

1978, following the opening up of China to theoutside world, that Chinese scientists becameaware of the subject of Ethnobotany, as it haddeveloped elsewhere, and were able to read inter-national journals such as the Journal ofEconomic Botany. A Chinese term for the wordEthnobotany was first used in a publication in1982. Meanwhile, Pei Shengji, who later becomeDirector of Xishuangbanna Botanic Garden(1978), had been working on the documentationof the botanical cultures of the Dai, Hani, Jinuo,Yao and other minorities in XishuangbannaPrefecture, Yunnan Province. This is the main

site of tropical forest in China. A seminal eventin the development and recognition ofEthnobotany as an applied science was theSecond National Symposium on Rubber andTropical Economic Crops, at which Pei Shengjimanaged to argue successfully against thewholesale replacement of tropical forest inXishuangbanna with rubber plantations. Hecould do so because be came well armed withevidence from research of the value of producefrom the rainforest to the people, both locally andpotentially to the nation, and also concerning the

beneficial influence of forest on surroundinghills for maintaining irrigation systems in the

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plains. A further controversy, in the mid-1980s,this time over a government proposal to banshifting agriculture, helped create greater nation-al awareness of the values of traditional ecologi-cal knowledge and practices. A Department ofEthnobotany was established in 1987 within theKunming Institute of Botany of the ChineseAcademy of Sciences, perhaps the first such eth-nobotanical institution world-wide outside theUSA. A second institution dedicated toEthnobotany was started in China in 1996, atInner Mongolia Normal University. Today,Applied Ethnobotany is becoming widely recog-nised throughout China as an extremely usefulsubject for conservation and development.

Societies, networks

and key events

The youthfulness of Ethnobotany is demonstrat-ed by the recent dates of founding of related soci-

eties and networks, and of other events consid-ered to be seminal to its national developmentaccording to local perceptions:1959. Founding of the Society for Economic

Botany (SEB).1978. First Conference of the Society of

Ethnobiology. The society draws its mem-bership mainly from Canada and the USA.

1980. Founding of the Society ofEthnobotanists. The society has a base inIndia.

1981. Founding of China Association ofEthnomedicine and Folk Medicine.

1982. Founding of Traditional Medicine forthe Islands (TRAMIL). Originally restrict-ed to the Caribbean, TRAMIL expandedformally to include Central America in1993 (but with collaborative efforts since1984). TRAMIL supports the use of tradi-tional medicine, notably through its valida-tion through pharmacological and toxico-logical research.

1986. Founding of the Grupo EtnobotnicoLatinoamericano (GELA), affiliated to LaAsociacin de Latinoamericana de

Botnica.1986. Onwards. Regular symposia on

Ethnobotany organised within the frame-work of the Latinamerican BotanicalCongress, held every 4 years.

1987. A symposium held by GELA is seen asthe start of nationally-based Ethnobotanyin Colombia (Martinez, 2002); GELA hasalso organised many other symposia.

1987. First National Training Workshop onEthnobotany in China.

1988. Founding of the International Society ofEthnobiology (ISE).

1990. Founding of the Society ofEthnopharmacology.

Early 1990s. Launch of the GEF/FAO/UNDPinitiative for institutional capacity-buildingfor biodiversity conservation in EastAfrica, seen as giving a boost toEthnobotany in the region (Kessy, 2002).

1992. Start of the People and Plants Initiativeof WWF, UNESCO and the Royal BotanicGardens, Kew. The aim of the initiative isto build capacity in Ethnobotany in devel-oping countries.

1992. First International EthnobotanyCongress, Cordoba, Spain.

1994. Foundation of the Asociacin Mexicanade Etnobiologa.

1994. Founding of The Natural ProductsResearch Network for Eastern and Central

Africa (NAPRECA).1995-1997. Training workshops in

Ethnobotany held in Bangladesh, China,India, Nepal and Pakistan under the HinduKush - Himalaya Ethnobotany Project ofthe International Centre for IntegratedMountain Development (ICIMOD) in asso-ciation with the People and PlantsInitiative. These were the first nationalworkshops in Ethnobotany held in severalof these countries.

1996. Founding of the Ethnobotanical Society

of Nepal (ESON).1997. Founding of the African EthnobotanicalNetwork (AEN), affiliated to theAssociation pour lEtude de la FloredAfrique Tropicale (AETFAT).

1997. Second International EthnobotanyCongress, Mrida, Mexico.

1997. Founding of the Uganda Network ofEthnobotanists and Ethnoecologists(UGANEB).

2000. Founding of the Sociedad Colombianade Etnobiologa.

2000. First National Workshop in Ethnobotany

in Cuba (2000) (Fernndez, 2002).2000. Founding of the Kenya Ethnoecological

Society (KES).2001. Third International Ethnobotany

Congress, Italy.2002. Founding of the Pakistan Ethnobotanical

Society (PES).2002. Founding of the Tanzanian Society of

Ethnoscience.



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11

Ethnobotany as a taught subject

For the purpose of discussion, a distinction ismade between a course and a programme. Acourse is taken to be a relatively brief period ofstudy, for example a one-week course for profes-sionals or a module within a programme (e.g. aunit of Ethnobotany within an undergraduateprogramme in Botany). A programme is longerin duration, being a subject of graduation or elsea tailored package of several courses designed togive an effective education in Ethnobotany with-in the context of a wider degree programme.

There is no doubt that the number of coursesin Ethnobotany is increasing. A survey of theteaching of Economic Botany in the USA, under-taken in 1963, found 110 universities offeringsingle courses in this subject, though only 5 atgraduate level (Bartoo, 1964). A growingdemand from students was reported. There wereno courses actually entitled Ethnobotany, whichat the time had yet to be regarded as a distinct

academic subject in its own right. There were nospecialised programmes in Economic Botany,but the author drew special attention to two uni-versities of special merit, Harvard - with pro-gressive teaching by Richard Schultes involvinglaboratory and fieldwork and access to goodresearch facilities - and Iowa State - whichoffered the most in-class lecture time. A subse-quent survey in 1996, not restricted to the USA,showed that, by then, Ethnobotany had oftenbecome recognised as a distinct subject(McClatchey et al., 1999). A major finding was a

growth in the number of programmes inEconomic Botany or Ethnobotany from 2 in 1963(Harvard and Iowa) to 30 in 1996. It was notedthat Ethnobotany, especially concentrating onmedicinal plants, was becoming fashionable. Itwas also found that there was a trend away fromteaching these subjects to just students ofBotany, with an increase in the number of stu-dents enrolled registered in non-botanical depart-ments or inter-disciplinary programmes.

The 1996 survey identified 135 institutionsworldwide offering courses in Economic Botanyor Ethnobotany (McClatchey et al., 1999). Thelargest number was in North America (70 cours-es; 23 programmes), the equivalent figures forother regions being South America (7; 5), Europe(6; 1), Asia (3; 0), Australia (1; 0) and Africa (0;0). A similar predominance of courses in theUSA was also a finding of a small internet surveyof Ethnobotany courses conducted in 2001 byFlorent Bernard and Mark Nesbitt of the RoyalBotanic Gardens, Kew, and one of the presentauthors, Alan Hamilton: 19 out of the 35 coursesor programmes detected were in the USA.Neither of these surveys should be regarded as

definitive, both likely underestimating the num-

ber of courses outside North America.Nevertheless, it is probably true that there aremany more courses in the USA than in any othercountry, a reflection of the large number of uni-versities and students, and the popularity ofinterdisciplinary subjects. Judging by a remarkthat many of the courses are shallow(McClatchey et al., 1999) and by descriptions ofthe courses on their websites, it is evident thatmany courses in Economic Botany andEthnobotany in the USA are intellectually unde-manding, being aimed at general liberal artsstudents. The first programme devoted toEthnobotany in the UK was launched in 1998. Itis a 1-year MSc programme taught collaborative-ly by the Department of Anthropology of theUniversity of Kent at Canterbury, the DurrellInstitute of Conservation and Ecology and theRoyal Botanic Gardens, Kew (Ellen, 2002).

A survey of 1995 confirmed the leadingposition of Mexico within Latin America as acentre for the teaching of Ethnobotany, noting

the contributions of the Universidad deChapingo and the Centro de InvestigacinCientifica de Yucatn, the latter linked toresearchers from the Universidad NacionalAutnoma de Mxico (UNAM) (Lagos-Witte etal., 1995). The same survey identified two uni-versities in Central America providing signifi-cant courses on useful plants, namely theUniversidad Nacional Autnoma de Nicaragua-Lon (UNAN) and the Universidad de Panam.Federal universities in Brazil teachingEthnobotany are shown on Table 3.

A survey published in 1997 confirmed thatthere were very few ethnobotanical courses inAfrica, even though it was estimated that about1500 students were currently learning somethingabout the subject (Hft & Hft, 1997). Therewere no courses at that time in East Africa,where, more recently, there have been some sig-nificant developments (Kessy, 2002). The mostadventurous efforts have been in Uganda, wherethe Department of Botany, Makerere University,has initiated a full three-year undergraduate pro-gramme in Ethnobotany. This is possibly the firstsuch programme in the world. Unfortunately, the

programme at Makerere is only open to privatestudents, the level of fees being such as to likelydeter many potential students from applying. TheDepartment of Botany at Makerere is also con-sidering starting an MSc programme inEthnobotany. The Faculty of Forestry and NatureConservation at Makerere includes a course inEthnobotany in its BSc (Forestry) programmeand it is likely that Ethnobotany will also beincluded in two MSc programmes being devel-oped, one in Agroforestry and the other in RuralResources and Development (a joint programme

with the Faculty of Agriculture). The Department

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of Botany, Kenyatta University, plans to start anMSc programme in Ethnobotany in the nearfuture, while the Department of Botany, NairobiUniversity, is considering starting an undergrad-uate course in the subject. Both of these depart-ments in Kenya currently teach elements ofEthnobotany in other programmes, as is also thecase with the Department of Botany of theUniversity of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and theDepartment of Crop Science and the Faculty ofForestry at Sokoine University of Agriculture in

the same country. There is no full course inEthnobotany in Tanzania.Ethnobotany has been introduced widely

into undergraduate and postgraduate curricula inBotany in universities and colleges in India, butso far we know of no specific programme lead-ing to the award of a degree or diploma specifi-cally in the subject. Recently, the University ofTribhuvan in Nepal has created an electivecourse in Ethnobotany, and many students in thecountry have opted to do research for their dis-sertations on the subject (Joshi, 2002). In the caseof Pakistan, there were no courses in

Ethnobotany in 1996, but, by 2002, ethnobotanycourses had been introduced at AJK University,

Balochistan University, Fatima Jinnah WomensUniversity (Rawalpindi), Islamia College(Peshawar), Malakand University, NWFPAgricultural University (Applied Ethnobotanyand Advances in Ethnobotany) and at theUniversity of Peshawar. There are no ethno-botanical courses within programmes of forestryin Pakistan, although components of the subjectare covered as parts of Plant Taxonomy andmodules on forest utilisation (Khurshid &Mahboob, 2002).

In Thailand, the first programme at PhDlevel incorporating Ethnobotany as a major ele-ment was established at Chiang Mai Universityin 1999 (Trisonthi & Trisonthi, 2002). It is enti-tled Biodiversity and Ethnobiology.

Ethnobotany, as a taught subject for gradu-ates, was first established in China in 1987, in theDepartment of Ethnobotany of the KunmingInstitute of Botany, Chinese Academy ofSciences. About 25 students have studied or arecurrently studying for MSc or PhD degrees.More recently, a number of other institutionshave started to teach the subject, including the

Southwest Forestry College (where a course inEthnobotany became incorporated into the Social



12

Table 3. Representation of Ethnobotany in federal universities in Brazil (Stern da

Fonseca, 2002).

Region of Brazil Number of No. of federal universities Departments in Components in Courses in whichfederal with courses which courses other courses Ethnobotany

universities in in Ethnobotany forms a componentEthnobotany are taught

North 6 0 2 AgricultureBiology

North-east 10 4 Botany 5 Aquatic ScienceHealth Biology

Pharmacology PharmacyEcosystem Sustainability

Central-west 4 0 2 BiologyConservation of Biological

Diversity

Health and EnvironmentalScience

South-east 13 3 Botany (x2) AgricultureHorticulture 6 Biology

Botany (Ecology)Pharmacy

South 6 1 Botany 2 BiologyBotany

Pharmacy

Total 39 8 17

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Table 4. Courses in Ethnobotany and related subjects in universities in

Malaysia (Saleh, 2000).

University Faculty, school, Title of course Student enrolmentdepartment or programme

Universiti Kebangsaan School of Environmental Ethnobotany Elective course for non-science students

Malaysia, Bangi and Natural Resources Sciences plants, people and life

Universiti Malaya, Institute of Biological Science Ethnobotany Compulsory for Biomedical Technology studentsKuala Lumpur Taxonomy and medicinal plants Compulsory for Biomedical Technology students

Formulation and herbal Compulsory for Biomedical Technology studentsmedicine preparationAlternative medicine Compulsory for Biomedical Technology students

Universiti Sains School of Pharmaceutical Science Traditional medicine and pharmacognosy Elect ive courseMalaysia, Penang

Universiti Putra Faculty of Forestry Non-wood forest productsMalaysia, Serdang Agroforestry

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Plant Resources Ethnobotany Compulsory for second year studentsKota Samarahan Science and Technology Natural product chemistry

Resource Chemistry Programme

Forestry Programme in 1992), the NationalUniversity of Pharmacy, Inner MongoliaNormal University (where the teaching ofEthnobotany to graduates in the Mongolianlanguage commenced in 1998) and many med-ical colleges and universities. Each universityor college initially designed its own course, but

there is now movement towards adoption of acommon curriculum following a workshopheld under the auspices of the present projectin August 2001 (Pei Shengji, 2002b).

Ethnobotany is not a major taught subjectin universities in Malaysia, but is increasing inimportance (Table 4) (Saleh, 2000).Ethnobotany is not offered as a specific subjectin the major forestry schools in Malaysia(Saleh, 2000).

How Ethnobotany

can be strengthenedEthnobotany urgently needs development as ataught subject and professional discipline.Lists of perceived weaknesses can make daunt-ing reading (Box 1). It has been suggested thatall of these are due to its youthfulness(McClatchey et al., 1999). Part of the problemis not so much to due to weaknesses inEthnobotanyper ipse, but rather to the frequentfailure of ecologists, geneticists and other spe-cialists to acknowledge the contributions thatEthnobotany has made to their subjects.

The perception that Ethnobotany is not ahard core science is a reflection, in part, of

methodological weaknesses in conservationmore widely. Much conservation, as practisedon the ground, is based on personal experienceor intuition, rather than with its directions andactivities being firmly supported by evidence.There is often little monitoring of success, orevaluation of effectiveness. Results are rarely

widely disseminated. There is a need to findmore effective ways of operating (Pullin &Knight, 2001; Stevens & Milne, 1997). A com-parison has been made with medicine, a disci-pline similar to conservation in that action isoften required urgently in the absence of pre-cise information (Pullin & Knight, 2001). Thepractice of medicine is said to have undergonean effectiveness revolution in some countriesin recent years through improvements in thecriteria upon which strategies in public health,or for the treatment of individual patients, arebased. The People and Plants Initiative is cur-

rently exploring ways to establish a networkcharged with identifying and disseminatingmore effective practices in AppliedEthnobotany.

Specific ways of improving standards,suggested by ourselves or others, include: Exchanges of case-studies, analyses and

ideas between ethnobotanists.The results of a questionnaire survey with

300 respondents sent out on behalf of theAfrican Ethnobotanical Network gave thethree principal reasons for improved network-

ing as: (1) provide information on research; (2)exchange ethnobotanical methods; and (3)

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enable contacts with colleagues (Hft & Hft,1997). Support and develop an ecosystem-based

approach to conservation and sustainabledevelopment, as a basic orientation for thedevelopment of Applied Ethnobotany (see

below and Figure 1). Promote standardisation in the levels ofrigour expected of courses and programmesin Applied Ethnobotany, within countriesand internationally (Kessy, 2002).Achievement of a measure of standardisation

will give potential employers better ideas of whatto expect of graduates and should enhance themobility of graduates in the job market. Raise awareness of the value of Applied

Ethnobotany within universities and educa-tional ministries, and among potential stu-dents and employers.

Awareness-raising among potential studentsand employers needs to proceed simultaneously.There is considerable concern among students inEthnobotany in East Africa about their prospectsof employment (Kessy, 2002). Promote greater rigour in research in

Ethnobotany, including through the formalstating and testing of hypotheses on peo-ple/plant relations (Cunningham, 1997).

Strengthen an existing trend towardsgreater quantification (Cunningham, 1997;Martinez, 1994).

A survey of ethnobotanists active in Africarevealed that only 15% appeared to use statisticsin their teaching (Hft & Hft, 1997). Increase hardcore scientific elements

such as Phytochemistry (Kessy, 2002).This might increase the acceptability of

Ethnobotany as a real science in some universi-ties, making it easier for courses and pro-grammes to be approved (Kessy, 2002).

The People and Plants Initiative is promotingApplied Ethnobotany as a distinct form ofEthnobotany because we believe thatEthnobotany has a major role to play in conser-vation and sustainable development. Our concernis especially with developing countries, whereplants growing locally are so important in ruraleconomies and cultures, where there are oftenconcentrations of biodiversity, and where the fewresources available for higher education need tobe carefully targeted. We are not against pureresearch, as such, or work on more esotericaspects of Ethnobotany, but warn of the danger

of universities becoming ivory towers and meretalking shops of little relevance to the lives ofpeople outside their gates.

In advocating Applied Ethnobotany and anecosystem-based approach to conservation andsustainable development, we point out that peo-ple/plant relations are so central to human liveli-hoods that courses or programmes inEthnobotany could potentially cover a vast rangeof topics. Unless there is focus, almost anythingcould be taught - hence, we suspect, the lowopinion in which the subject is held in some

quarters. The paradigm question has been allud-ed to by Victor Toledo, asking whetherEthnobotany is an isolated discipline, closedwithin itself, or rather part of a new interdiscipli-nary trend loosely tied to the problems of pro-duction and politics (Toledo, 1995). He writes:This trend makes mere academic contributions(ie, knowledge for knowledge itself) or basic sci-ence cease to be the main objective(s) ofresearch; instead they become intermediate prod-ucts along the way to goals of applied character.Toledo sees a connection with the appearance ofa new type of ethnobotanist in Mexico, one that

is less specialised, less politically nave and moreconscious of his or her social role: Two factorshave played a critical role in this metamorphosis:the participation of these new ethnobotanists inmultidisciplinary research groups, and theirrecognition that the Indian groups with whichthey work are the most exploited and marginalsector of Mexican society.

Figure 1 is a model of an ecosystem-basedapproach to conservation and sustainable devel-opment. The centre of attention is the localecosystem of people and nature, the local level



14

Box 1. Some perceived weaknesses ofEthnobotany.

1. In general (mainly after McClatchey et al. 1999):

A soft subject, not a hardcore science.

Shallowness or poor orientation of courses.

Lack of respect for the discipline; not appreciated by other professional people or gov-

ernment officials.

Lack of research funding. Lack of good mentors.

Lack of jobs.

Poorly developed methodologies.

Lack of national critical masses of ethnobotanists.

Few networks, including working relationships, in developing countries.

2. In Latin America, in particular (GELA, 2002):

Lack of support for research on society/environment relationships, which are not seen

as important.

Little motivation for inter-disciplinary approaches in academia or professional fields.

Difficulties of determining priorities.

No consensus on methods.

Few in-depth courses. Lack of formation of human resources.

Low local academic levels of some contributing disciplines.

Inadequate dissemination of results.

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Professions to which Applied

Ethnobotany can contribute

The real-life interactions of people with plantsoften do not conform neatly to the ways that aca-demic disciplines and related professional fieldsare organised. The reality of rural socio-ecologyin developing countries is that agricultural sys-

tems are not strictly dissociated from forestrysystems, nor are concerns about health divorcedfrom wider social and environmental affairs. Aprofessional understanding of the constraintsgoverning access and use of plant resourcesrequires a knowledge of Sociology,Anthropology and Economics as much as Botanyand Ecology. People living in rural communitiesin developing countries may obtain food, shelter,medicine, fuel, fodder and other resources fromplants that are wild as well as from those thatare cultivated, straddling the domains of the

forester and the agriculturalist. There is often lessdistinction between food and medicine than isnormal in the West. Individual wellbeing is feltto be closely connected to the social and spiritu-al worlds, requiring appreciation by researchersof local worldviews and religious beliefs, as wellas of more material factors. The training of eth-nobotanists must obviously extend across theboundaries of disciplines, as traditionallydefined.

Fields of knowledge in academia have tend-ed to become increasingly specialised over recentyears. This is a reflection, in part, of the hugequantities of information on a vast diversity ofspecific topics that exist today and a growingspecialisation of occupations, especially withinindustrial societies. Disciplines and related pro-fessions concerned substantially with plants haveshared in the information explosion, sometimeswith dramatic consequences. On the one hand,scientific knowledge about plants has con-tributed to the introduction of high-yielding vari-eties of crops and thus to the explosion in the sizeof the human population. However, on the otherhand, benefits from science have accrued dispro-

portionately to people living in richer, industri-alised and largely urban countries, or to more

privileged people in the developing world(Toledo, 1995). Scientists have paid compara-tively little attention to the problems of conser-vation and development faced by the majority ofhumankind, especially the many poor peoplewho live in developing countries.

The search for answers to many of the prob-lems of conservation and sustainable develop-

ment associated with rural people in developingcountries requires a more holistic and participa-tory approach to research than has conventional-ly been the case. Research approaches need tocorrespond more closely to the multi-dimension-al realities of peoples lives. Fundamentalrequirements are acknowledgement of theknowledge and wisdom of local people and theirclose engagement in the identification of prob-lems and potential solutions. AppliedEthnobotany, an interdisciplinary subject, is wellplaced to surmount the divisions imposed by thenarrowness of many modern academic fields andprofessions concerned with human livelihoodsand the environment. We encourage those peoplewho wish to develop courses in AppliedEthnobotany to study the origins and determinethe biases of botanically-related academic disci-plines and professions in their countries (Table5). There is little doubt that these disciplines andprofessions in developing countries have beenstrongly influenced in their histories by culturaland economic forces emanating substantiallyfrom elsewhere. Centres of economic strengthand scientific endeavour, notably in Europe and

North America, have contributed disproportion-ately to the shaping of modern academia and theprofessions all over the world.

The histories of Botany, Forestry,Agriculture and Medicine are briefly reviewedbelow to show something of how these subjectshave evolved. The intention is to provide a roughglobal picture to help those interested in devel-oping teaching in Applied Ethnobotany. Aspiringteachers are encouraged to carry out investiga-tions of the histories of these and other plant-related subjects in their own countries. They

should analyse their appropriateness, as current-ly taught and practised, to meet the challenges ofconservation and sustainable development.

Relevance of Applied Ethnobotany toBotany, Forestry, Agriculture and

Medicine

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Botany: past and future

Scientific Botany, as it emerged in Europe duringthe Renaissance, was closely tied to medicineand pharmacy (Heywood, 1991). Written recordsof the uses of plants, especially as medicines,date much further back in China, AncientGreece, India and, comparatively recently, themedieval Arab world (Dash, 1995; Eldin &Dunford, 1999; Hernndez Bermejo & Garca

Snchez, 1998). The Condition of the Flora ofthe Southern Region written by Ji-Han in the 3rdcentury AD covers South China and part of Indo-China, with accounts of about 80 species ofplants providing edible fruits, nuts and otherproducts. The first botanic gardens in the westerntradition were physic gardens attached to schoolsof medicine. They were created for the use of stu-dents and for the production of medicines.Examples include the 16th century botanic gar-dens of Pisa, Padova and Florence in Italy. Evenin the 18th and early 19th centuries, most botan-

ical instruction in universities in the USA was tomedical students (Rudolph, 1996). The teachingof Botany in China, as a formal subject, began inthe early part of the 20th century and only duringthe last 50 or so years in much of Africa.

The Age of Discovery and the spread of theEuropean empires were accompanied by a newinterest in collecting and cataloguing all types ofplants (Ng, 2000). Knowledge of the naturalworld was seen in a general philosophical way asa key ingredient in the acceleration of humanprogress (James, 1998). More immediately,there was intense interest in finding plants ofeconomic worth for national or personal enrich-ment. Many botanical gardens and arboreta in thetropics, such as Pamplemousses on Mauritius(founded 1736) and Peradeniya in Sri Lanka(1821), originated as testing grounds for crops oras holding grounds for plants in transit. Majorbotanical gardens in the colonial homelands,such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (found-ed privately in 1759, becoming a state propertyin 1840), formed the hubs of international net-works of collection and testing.

Many specialist branches of Botany have

emerged over the last 200 years, includingAnatomy, Cytology, Ecology, Genetics,Molecular Biology and Physiology. Ecology, thescience concerned with the study of living beingsat home, emerged as a distinct discipline in thelate 19th century, founded on older traditions ofnatural history. The need to take account of themajor roles of people in shaping the structure,floristic composition and dynamics of vegetationin Europe became rapidly apparent, but theequivalent massive influence of people on tropi-cal vegetation, including tropical forest, has been

recognised only more recently. Ecologists work-ing in the tropics have tended to concentrate theirresearch on types of vegetation thought to be

more natural. Ethnobotany has been instrumentalin showing that agricultural and wilder types ofvegetation are often thoroughly interlinkedthrough economic and cultural ties (Prance,1995).

A major trend in Biology, including Botany,over the last decades has been a significantexpansion in some countries in the teaching ofMicrobiology, Molecular Biology, Genetics, andrelated subjects. The loser has been BasicBotany, more or less synonymous with wholeplant Botany (as it has been called). BasicBotany, covering fields such as Anatomy,Ecology, Morphology, Systematics andTaxonomy, has been in serious decline in theUSA (Botanical Society of America, 1995).Systematic Botany has virtually disappeared as ataught subject in British Universities and manystudents are no longer taught to identify plants(Smith, 2002a). The same is reported from theNetherlands and Spain (Groen & Valdes, 2002).One consequence is that Departments of Botany

have often been merged with Departments ofZoology into Departments of Biology, withinwhich whole plant Botany has tended to receiveeven less attention than whole animal Zoology(Botanical Society of America, 1995; Rudolph,1996). The result is graduates in Botany orBiology who have little ability to work profes-sionally with real plants. The production ofbotanists who cant tell a composite from anorchid or leaf anatomy from stem anatomy isunconscionable. And common. Regardless ofspeciality, botanists should have a broad back-

ground in all major phases of botany (BotanicalSociety of America, 1995).It is reported from the UK that the decline in

whole plant Botany at universities is furtherreflected in schools (Hershey, 1993; Lock, 1994;Reiss, 1994; Smith, 2002b; Uno & Bybee, 1994).Also in the UK, there has been a reduction in thepopularity of Biology, both in schools and uni-versities (Lock, 1994; Lock, 1996). A conse-quence is that the requirements for entry todepartments of Biology in universities have beenlowered. Lock believes that the decline in the UKis not related to job prospects, of which few

pupils are said to have any idea. He suspects thatit is rather more to do with the image and natureof the subject. A level Biology (taught at seniorsecondary level) has apparently come to be seenas boring. He believes that GCSE syllabuses(taught at junior secondary level) no longer placestress on those things that make living thingsintrinsically interesting - their forms, anatomy,variety, location, behaviour and ecology.Biology has become too similar to Chemistry orto exercises in processing data. Two commentsmade by experienced educators at a meeting of

the Linnean Society in April 2002 help to explainwhy many students are losing interest in field

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Table 5. Analytical framework to assist in the design of courses

and programmes in Applied Ethnobotany. Consul tation

with academics and professionals engaged in the vari-

ous fields will be useful for completing the table. We

suggest that the acquisition of information to complete

the table can usef ully constitute a class exercise for more

advanced students of Applied Ethnobotany.

Profession History of Potential relevance Implicationsthe discipline to conservation for the teachingin the country and development of Applied

Ethnobotany

BotanyForestryAgricultureHorticultureMedicinePharmacologyConservation(Others)

Botany: Ive watched generations of pupilsbeing completely turned off Biology by thenational curriculum; Botany is not cool - ittakes too many years to master.

The teaching of Botany, whether at school oruniversity, does not have to be boring or seemirrelevant. Gabriell Paye has developed anapproach to teaching Botany in high schools inBoston, USA, starting from a reference that stu-dents can relate to - useful plants in their owncultures (Paye, 2000). Activities include ethno-

botanical interviews (learning about plants fromfamily, friends and neighbours), learning how tocollect and identify plants, and studies of plantsas sources of food and medicine, including sim-ple tests of the ingredients and physiologicalactivities of bought products. She reports that,when she taught Botany using a traditional text-book approach, the interest and informationretention levels among students were muchlower. In contrast, by entering the world of sci-ence through a personal experience of ethno-botany, students gain a real sense of how impor-tant plants are in their lives. I find that when they

are fuelled by this enthusiasm, they are morewilling to then delve into other aspects ofbotany.

We have seen no analysis of trends in theteaching of Botany in developing countries, but,from our experience, there has sometimes notbeen the drastic decline in whole plant Botanyevident in the developed world. Basic Botany isstill a major component of programmes inBotany in China, Nepal, Pakistan and Uganda.However, there has been a recent decline in thenumber of students taking science at A-level in

Uganda, probably reflecting a perception amongstudents of a lack of opportunities for employ-

ment and the absence of science teaching in vir-tually all private schools (the number of whichhas grown greatly during recent years)(Mucunguzi, 2002). The reduction in Biology inschools in Uganda means that it has becomeharder to find eligible candidates for pro-grammes in Botany or Ethnobotany.

The relative resilience of Basic Botany, in atleast some developing countries, certainly hasadvantages for Applied Ethnobotany. However,developing countries have their own, often

severe, educational constraints. Not least of theseare shortages of finance and, sometimes, of high-

ly trained staff. National policies in poor coun-tries often favour an emphasis on mass educa-tion, especially as delivered through primaryschools, squeezing resources for universitieseven further than would otherwise be the case.There are no government grants available forpostgraduate training in Uganda. There has beena recent major expansion of private schools inmany developing countries catering for the inad-equacy of state-supported systems. Many ofthese do not teach science, mainly because of theexpense involved in setting up and running labo-

ratories. There is a serious problem of graduateunemployment in many developing countries

... by entering the world of science

through a personal experience of

ethnobotany, students gain a real

sense of how important plants are

in their lives.



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and better students tend to opt for subjects suchas Medicine, in which there is a perceived greaterchance of employment. Botany is often the loser.

Given the central importance of plants todevelopment and conservation in developingcountries, it is evident that there should be aplace for Botany as a major taught subject.However, many Botany programmes need tochange to make them more relevant. In the words

of Dr Patrick Mucunguzi of the BotanyDepartment, Makerere University, Uganda:Botany needs to be taken to the community.Although Microbiology and related fields arefashionable in well-resourced countries, it is dif-ficult for researchers in developing countries tomake major contributions in these fields.Equipment is often obsolete or not functioning,and sometimes supplies of water and electricityin laboratories are intermittent. However,Applied Ethnobotany is relatively cheap, andthere are many opportunities for practical work.The task today is to develop AppliedEthnobotany to a more advanced state and to per-

suade officials in universities and governmentsthat the subject is worthwhile. This is bestachieved through examples of its successfulapplication.

Forestry: past and future

Modern Forestry originated in Germany wherethe first forestry school was established in 1789.This tradition of forest management developed

and spread around the world. Becoming knownas Scientific Forestry, it became the predominantinfluence in forestry education and practice inmany countries for 200 years (Nelson, 1999;Tsouvalis, 2000). The primary aim of ScientificForestry is to maximise the yield of money froma forest, especially through the production oftimber (Burley, 2001). Scientific foresters aretrained to select species or provenances of timbertrees of economic worth and to manage them sys-tematically. They learn how trees should beplanted or encouraged to regenerate, how their

growth can be promoted, and their optimal timesof felling.Scientific Forestry was introduced into India

in 1864 with the appointment of the firstInspector General of Forests, from Germany(Ray, 1994) and thereafter spread to other colo-nial territories. It was introduced into Uganda in1929 following an advisory visit by a forestryofficial from India (Hamilton, 1984). In Britain,forestry received little systematic attention from

the government until after the First World War,an event instrumental in raising awareness of theneed for a home-grown strategic reserve of tim-ber. The Forestry Commission was founded in1919 and has since become a major landowner.Conifers, such as sitka spruce Picea sitchensis,were favoured for planting, given their highpotential rates of growth and their ecologicalsuitability for planting on the poorer quality ofland which tended to become available.Although British forestry policy in the tropicswas normally centrally concerned with timber,this was not entirely to the exclusion of otherconsiderations. Forest Reserves were established



Rootbark of Strychnos spinosa.

Wood (tangential) of Tabernaemontana

pachysiphon(not used for timber).

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in upland areas to protect water catchments andthe needs of villagers were recognised by allow-ing them to collect minor forest products, fortheir own use, free-of-charge or with payment ofsmall fees.

The roles of forests and foresters have beenradically re-thought in many countries during thelast 20 years (Brown, 2001; Burley, 2001; Obua,2002b; Ray, 1994; Tsouvalis, 2000). Forestshave increasingly come to be seen as servingmultiple functions. There have been upsurges ofinterest in social, community and participatoryforestry, in non-timber forest products (NTFPs)and, generally, in trying to find ways to engageall stakeholders, especially local communities, inforest management (Aumeeruddy-Thomas et al.,1999; Burley, 2001). The history of graduate-level forestry education in Uganda provides anexample (Obua, 2002a). A Forestry programmewas started at Makerere University in 1970, ini-tially taking students from the whole of EastAfrica. The curriculum concentrated on

Scientific Forestry for the next 20 years and itwas only in 1990 that a people element startedto be seriously introduced. In Pakistan, theimportance of medicinal plants has becomerecognised by the Pakistan Forest Institute, withthe Biological Sciences Research Divisionbecoming engaged in a variety of research andpromotional activities, including surveys of useand trade, and cultivation trials.

Several factors have been responsible forthese developments. In some cases, there can bea questioning of the authority of Forest

Departments, especially when they have come toexercise control over very extensive territories(Nelson, 1999). Ninety-three per cent of the for-est area of India is under government control(Ray, 1994). The political legitimacy of ForestDepartments can be diminished when forestersare suspected of benefiting personally from theirpositions of power, a major issue in some coun-tries. Another cause of change has been a grow-ing realisation that governments cannot controlthe often serious problems of forest loss anddegradation which are occurring in their coun-tries without the support of local people. There is

also a better general understanding of the valuesof forests, apart from as sources of timber, andnon-utilitarian values have become better appre-ciated by officials.

The older generation of foresters frequentlylabelled products from forests, other than timber,as minor forest products, a term which has con-tributed to a failure to recognise their signifi-cance to local people, or the impact of their col-lection on the forests. Even timber harvested bynon-mechanical means could be ignored. Anexample is provided by the history of forestry on

the East Usambaras, Tanzania, where there wasa major outcry in the 1980s about the impact of

mechanical logging, which was certainly highlydestructive (Hamilton & Bensted Smith, 1989).What did not become clear until surveys werewell advanced was that the volume of woodbeing harvested annually by mechanical means(about 10,000 m3 a-1) was equalled by that beingharvested by pit-sawing (about 10,000 m3 a-1)and much less than that being harvested for polesand fuelwood (about 80,000 m3 a-1) (FINNIDA,1988). The Usambara study did not providequantitative information of non-wood products,though these are certainly important to local peo-ple (Kessy, 1998). Research in the region ofUxpanapa, Mexico, revealed that 82% of prod-ucts obtained from the rainforest were non-woodrather than wood (Toledo, 1995).

There has, therefore, been a call for thetraining of foresters to be expanded beyond thetraditional emphases on forest protection andproduction of industrial timber (Sharma, 1994).A major purpose of a GEF/FAO/UNDP biodi-versity project, active in East Africa since the

early 1990s, has been to encourage greateraccount to be taken of community uses of plantresources in the education of foresters (Aloo &Rodgers, 1995; FAO, 1996; Hall, 1994; Rodgers,1995). Few working foresters, it has been said,have the skills needed for the tasks now in hand(Burley, 2001). A survey in the USA found thatemployers of forestry graduates have found itnecessary to retrain them to understand and prac-tice a style of forestry that is broader and moreintegrative than in the past (Sample et al., 1999).Among the new social skills required are the

abilities to build teams and communicate effec-tively, and to negotiate with stakeholders in theidentification and solving of disputes (Box 2)(Harmon, McKinney & Burchfield, 1999;

Sample et al., 1999). With reference to EastAfrica, the following major thematic areas andcomponents are regarded as key areas in whichforestry students should be educated to be able towork more effectively with communities (Aloo& Rodgers, 1995; Hall, 1994). Socio-economic issues: formal and infor-

mal village institutions; non-governmentalorganisations; stakeholder analysis; indige-nous knowledge and beliefs; methodolo-gies for acquisition of socio-economicdata, including through questionnaires.

Non-timber forest products andEthnobotany: categories of non-timber for-

In Pakistan, the importance of

medicinal plants has become

recognised by the Pakistan

Forest Institute

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est products; traditional systems ofresource management and harvesting; fieldassessment of products used and who uses

them; estimates of theimpact of collectionon plant populations;market surveys; gain-

ing a landscape perspec-tive of change; method-

ologies for acquisition ofdata including time-lines,

inventories and other tech-niques.

Collaborative forest man-agement: guidelines for facilitat-

ing joint forest management; deter-mination of the extent of forests and

recognition of sub-units; methodolo-gies, including forest walks for determin-

ing forest uses, users, managers and con-flicts; the ranking of uses and of damage toplants relating to particular uses; the deter-

mination of who should be the managersand of management rules; preparation ofplans for collaborative forest managementand procedures for approval.

In addition to these new requirements, grad-uates in forestry should have a good grounding intraditional forestry science (Burley, 2001). Howthen can these multiple demands be accommo-dated within courses (Brown, 2001)? Rigorousforestry courses are expensive, with demands forspecialised staff and laboratory, as well as field

trips (Tombaugh, 1998). A response of someeducators has been to increase the length ofundergraduate courses in Forestry from three tofour years, as in Uganda (Obua, 2002a). Anotherresponse, at least in the USA, has been anincrease in the number of less specialised pro-grammes in natural resources and environmentalscience (Tombaugh, 1998). These are cheaperthan traditional forestry courses, but are said toproduce graduates who may have degrees inForestry, but lack the practical basic knowledgeand skills to manage forests on the ground.

Forestry, like Biology, is proving increasing-

ly unattractive to students in some industrialisedcountries (Burley, 2001). There is a perceptionthat Forestry is more physical than intellectual,and more of a male than a female occupation: InBritain and many other countries there is a com-mon perception that forestry comprises nastymen with nasty chain saws cutting nasty straightlines of nasty exotic species. (Burley, 2001). Anequivalent decline is not reported from at leastsome developing countries, such as Pakistan andUganda, where degrees in Forestry are still seenas relatively likely to lead to jobs in the context

of generally high graduate unemployment(Mucunguzi, 2002; Obua, 2002a). The growth of

social and environmental forestry in Uganda hasattracted an increasing proportion of female stu-dents, many having previously been put off, it issaid, by an image of forestry as difficult manu-al work in thick forest (Obua, 2002a).

Forestry today needs to demonstrate itsappeal to values that have wide resonance insociety. It should generate intellectual excite-ment and attract bright people. The incorporation

of Applied Ethnobotany into Forestry curriculaand its use as a tool by professional foresters willhelp move the discipline in the right direction.Work with communities to evolve improvedmethods of managing trees and other plants hasmany potential benefits for conservation and sus-tainable development.

Agriculture: past and future

Agriculture provides the great bulk of food sup-porting people on Earth. Despite a very high per-centage of terrestrial primary production being

devoted to this cause, 700-800 million peoplestill lack adequate access to food. It is not hard topredict that demands for food will rise sharply,not least because the size of the human popula-tion itself is predicted to grow, from its present 6billion to 8.3 billion in 2025. There is consider-able disagreement about how best to meet thischallenge, a problem compounded by the likeli-hood of considerable environmental uncertainty,for example due to climatic change (Pretty,1998). The area under cultivation could expandby 20-40% by 2020 (Pretty, 1998).

There have been dramatic changes in agri-culture in many parts of the world over recentcenturies and decades. Some of these followed

Triticum monococcum

22 PEOPLE AND PLANTS WORKING PAPER 10, JULY 2002AN ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF MEDICINAL TREE CULTIVATION

A.B. CUNNINGHAM, E. AYUK, S. FRANZEL, B. DUGUMA & C. ASANGA

Eragrostis tef Box 2. Technical competencesrequired of forestrygraduates in the USA.They are in rank order,based on responsesfrom 257 potentialemployers (Sample etal., 1999).

1. Ethics.

2. Written communication.

3. Oral communication.

4. Silvicultural systems.

5. Managerial leadership.

6. Collaborative problem-solving.

7. Forest ecology.

8. Resource management planning.

9. Forest inventory and biometry.10. Tree and other plant species identification.

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the opening up of the world by European explo-ration and colonisation from about 1500, forexample, with maize and the potato being intro-duced into the Old World, and wheat and sugar-cane into the Americas. Science has become amajor force for change over the last 150 years,during which time advances in chemistry andbiology, including genetics and plant physiology,have led to significant developments in soil sci-ence, crop-breeding and pest-control. The last 50years,

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