What is the importance of ethnobotany?

What is the importance of ethnobotany?

The study of ethnobotany is of great importance for the aid it gives to a proper understanding of the interrelations of all the several traits and of the whole material and intellectual culture of a people in its entirety.

What is ethnobotany PDF?

Ethnobotany is the study of the dynamic relationship between plants and people. They investigate the strategies employed by rural subsistence societies, past and present, to manage plant species, and whether these actions are environmentally sustainable.

What is the scope of ethnobotany?

Like its parent field, ethnobotany makes apparent the connection between human cultural practices and the sub-disciplines of biology. Ethnobotanical studies range across space and time, from archaeological investigations of the role of plants in ancient civilizations to the bioengineering of new crops.

What is ethnobotany the study of?

Ethnobotany is the study of how people of a particular culture and region make use of indigenous (native) plants. Plants provide food, medicine, shelter, dyes, fibers, oils, resins, gums, soaps, waxes, latex, tannins, and even contribute to the air we breathe.

What is the importance of Ethnomedicine?

Ethnopharmacological relevance Ethnomedicinal studies are significant for the discovery of new crude drugs from indigenous reported medicinal plants. The current study aimed to report the indigenous medicinal knowledge of plants and herbal remedies used as folk medicines in Cholistan desert, Punjab Province, Pakistan.

What are the methods used to study ethnobotany?

For the purpose of this study, three methods were selected: a semi-structured interview with the entire adult population, which requires more time to collect ethnobotanical information; an inventory interview, which requires less time to collect ethnobotanical data but is associated with a previously compiled inventory …

What are the different disciplines of ethnobotany?

In view of the interdisciplinary nature of ethnobotany, an ethnobotanists should be familiar with at least six disciplines namely, botany, anthropology, chemistry, linguistics, economics and ecology, but should try to specialise in any one or two of them.

Who introduced ethnobotany in India?

In 1873, Sir George Watt studied the economic plants of the Manipur and Burma (Myanmar) border for 10 years. In 1883 he was put in charge of an exhibition on Indian economic products sponsored by the then government of Bengal (now West Bengal and Bangladesh).

What is the role of ethnobotany in medicine?

Ethnobotany contributes to drug discovery by providing leads to: 1. Direct drug substances first isolated from nature as with reserpine6 and eserine.

What is the role of ethnobotany in food security?

Ethnobotanical methods can show how different ethnic groups living within a particular habitat close to nature, they interact with it and use natural resources fostering resilience during periods of food insecurity. Ethnobotany also contributes to dietary diversity and sustained income. Plants provide food.

What are the importance of medicinal plants?

Medicinal plants are considered as a rich resources of ingredients which can be used in drug development either pharmacopoeial, non- pharmacopoeial or synthetic drugs. A part from that, these plants play a critical role in the development of human cultures around the whole world.

What is the difference between ethnomedicine and traditional medicine?

The word ethnomedicine is sometimes used as a synonym for traditional medicine. Ethnomedical research is interdisciplinary; in its study of traditional medicines, it applies the methods of ethnobotany and medical anthropology. Often, the medicine traditions it studies are preserved only by oral tradition.

Why is the study of ethnobotany so important?

The study of ethnobotany is of great importance for the aid it gives to a proper understanding of the interrelations of all the several traits and of the whole material and intellectual culture of a people in its entirety. Without the light afforded by ethnobotany an investigator may easily go far astray in interpreting his observations.

What was the purpose of Harshberger’s ethnobotany?

Harshberger’s conception of ethnobotany—recording the uses of plants by “primitive” peoples—was undeniably limited in scope, but it was a beginning.

What is the cognitive dimension of ethnobotany?

The cognitive dimension of ethnobotany is relevant to understanding interrelations between language, thought, and memory in human societies (Nolan 2002, 2007; Shipman and Boster 2008).

When was ethnobotany published by John Wiley and Sons?

Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 133 f134 Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships lichens, and fungi. On the social sciences and humanities side are anthropology, political science, geography, environmental studies, economics, psychology, linguistics, and philos- ophy, among others.