MSc IV Ethnobotany

1. Participatory community
Ethnobotany

2. WWF
• WWF (formerly the World Wide Fund For
Nature), founded in 1961, is the world’s
• largest private nature conservation organization.
It consists of 29 national organizations
• and associates, and works in more than 100
countries. The coordinating
• headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. The WWF
mission is to conserve biodiversity, to
• ensure that the use of renewable natural
resources is sustainable and to promote
• actions to reduce pollution and wasteful
consumption.

3. UNESCO
• The United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the
• only UN agency with a mandate spanning the
fields of science (including social
• sciences), education, culture and
communication. UNESCO has over 40 years of
experience
• in testing interdisciplinary approaches to
solving environmental and development

4. • problems in programmes such as that on Man
and the Biosphere (MAB). An international
• network of biosphere reserves provides sites
for conservation of biological
• diversity, long-term ecological research and
testing and demonstrating approaches to
• the sustainable use of natural resources.

5. ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW
• The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, has 150
professional staff and associated researchers
• and works with partners in over 42 countries.
Research focuses on taxonomy, preparation
• of floras, economic botany, plant biochemistry
and many other specialized fields.
• The Royal Botanic Gardens has one of the
largest herbaria in the world and an excellent
• botanic library.

6. Participatory community
• The methods outlined in this chapter are
• the steps used to get a better understanding
• of people’s preferences and the demand
• for particular plant species. Although
• some plant uses such as harvesting of
• wood for fuel, building or commercial
• woodcarving are more obvious, occurring
• throughout the year and in large volume,
• wild plant gathering is often part of a
• ‘hidden economy’ unnoticed by outsiders.

7. • Consequently, careful field observation,
• sensitive consultation with local harvesters
• and strategic planning are required before
• any monitoring takes place. Even the
• identity of some commonly harvested
• species, often well known to local people,
• is often poorly known to protected area
• managers or outside researchers.

8. Local priorities:
• A reversal of roles has always been
understood
• in ethnobotanical work. Formally trained
• outsiders, whatever their experience, have
• a lot to learn from the insights of local
• people who are acknowledged within their
• own communities as experts on local
vegetation.

9. • As a result, local people play a
• crucial role at several parts in the research
• process, including research design, specimen
• and data collection, interpretation of
• data and, less commonly, the presentation
• of research results back to the community.
• Amongst development practitioners, this
• type of approach, where local people help
• in conducting research, has given rise to
• the term ‘participatory research’. It is
• important to realize that this does not refer
• to a single research method, as Brian Pratt
• and Peter Loizos (1992) point out:

10. • ‘Although some writers make it sound as though
there is a separate “participatory” research
method, this is misleading. The idea of
participation is more an overall guiding
philosophy of how to proceed, than a selection of
specific methods. So when people talk about
participatory research, participatory monitoring
and participatory evaluation, on the whole they
are not discussing a self-contained set of
methodologies, but a situation whereby the
methods being used have included an element of
strong involvement and consultation on the part
of the subjects of the research.

11. • Considerable common ground for joint
• work in resource management often exists.
• Resource users, development workers and
• protected area managers often have a
• common interest in cases of conflicts over
• valued but vulnerable plant resources.
• This can be due to restrictions on harvesting
• of rare species or vegetation within
• protected areas, to overexploitation
• arising from demand exceeding supply for
• useful wild plant species, or to conflicts
• between local harvesters and people from
• outside the community.

12. • Involvement of resource users as research
partners is an essential part of a successful
conservation strategy for useful plant species that
are susceptible to overexploitation. There are
three main reasons for this.
• Firstly, the knowledge and perceptions
• of resource users such as traditional
• healers, craft workers and commercial
• medicinal plant harvesters provide
• valuable insights into the insufficiency of useful
• plant species.

13. • Secondly, dialogue with resource users
• is a crucial part of developing conservation
• and resource management proposals
• with, rather than for, resource users.
• Thirdly, it enables specialist user
• groups to be identified. Rural communities
• are not homogeneous, but are complex
• networks, divided on the basis of power,
• gender and specialist interest groups.

14. • Choosing the right methods
• Choices of methods should be made case by-
• case on the basis of preliminary
• planning, bearing in mind timetable and
• budget constraints.
• Once permission for research work
• has been granted at a national and local
• level, then researchers need to decide on
• the survey methods that are appropriate.
• Commonly used methods are:

15. • discussions with individual resource
• users;
• • group interviews and discussions;
• • rapid rural appraisal (RRA), participatory
• rural appraisal (PRA) and
• participatory assessment, monitoring
• and evaluation (PAME);

16. • • social surveys using various sampling
• techniques and structured or semistructured
• interviews;
• • participant observation;
• • ethnobotanical inventory methods;
• • sample surveys based on field records
• with local resource users;
• • surveys of plants sold

17. • In the past five years, several excellent
• manuals and reviews have been published
• that give detailed descriptions of different
• methods. Many of these are readily available
• through organizations supporting field work in
developing countries.