Growing up in the Betsileo landscape: Children’s wild edible plants knowledge in Madagascar

Ethnobotanical study of wild edible plants in the mountainous regions of Semnan Province, Iran

In mountainous areas, wild edible plants are an important part of the local diet. Climate change and anthropogenic activities have profound effects on wild edible plants in these areas. Ethnobotanical studies are important for understanding the use patterns and harvest impacts on these plants. In this regard, the Shahrood region, with its diverse historical/ethnic background, is an appropriate starting point to investigate exploitation patterns and impacts of harvest of wild edible plants. During 2021-2022, ethnobotanical surveys were conducted in 12 villages in the region using semi-structured interviews and participatory observations. Data collection included assessing wild edible plant species diversity, their habitats, collection time and quantities, plant parts used and methods of consumption and preparation. The data were analyzed using use report indicators, relative frequency of citations, and use value (UV). A total of 1086 use reports were documented from a total of 44 interviews. A total of 67 wild species (66 plants and 1 fungus) belonging to 54 genera and 24 families were used as edible in the study area. Rosaceae (9 species), Apiaceae (8), Lamiaceae (8), Asteraceae (7), and Amaryllidaceae (5) were the families with the most reported species. Allium (5 species) was the most diverse genus in terms of species diversity. Herbs were the most commonly used life form (79.1%), followed by shrubs (13.4%) and trees (6%). The most consumed plant parts were young leaves (25%) and young aerial parts (21.4%). There were 13 use categories identified. The majority of edible plants were collected in April-May, mainly from areas nearby villages (37.7%) and rangelands (33.7%). The most important edible plants in the study area were Allium iranicum (Wendelbo) Wendelbo (UV = 1.7), Mentha longifolia (L.) Huds. (1.5), Allium umbilicatum Boiss. (1.47), Tragopogon graminifolius DC. (1.38), Lepidium draba L. (1.27), Urtica dioica L. (1.18), Falcaria vulgaris Bernh. (1.13), Malva neglecta Wallr. (1.11) and Eremurus sp. (1.09). Our results showed diverse and valuable knowledge for wild edible plants in this region, which should be considered in the conservation and management plans in the region.

Can family structure and contact with natural resources influence young people's knowledge about medicinal plants? An approach in the Northeast of Brazil

BACKGROUND

Individuals develop crucial survival knowledge in the juvenile phase, including understanding medicinal plants. The family context or contact with resources can influence this dynamic knowledge. By investigating the influence of these factors on young people's understanding of medicinal plants, we aimed to enhance our understanding of the knowledge-building process.

METHODS

The study was conducted in three communities in the State of Alagoas, Brazil: Lagoa do Junco, Serrote do Amparo, and Brivaldo de Medeiros. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with young people aged between 11 and 19 to assess their knowledge of medicinal plants. We used a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with the number of therapeutic targets and known medicinal species (knowledge proxy) as response variables. As predictors, we included the number of individuals per family unit and the gender distribution within the famimunícpily (family context proxy), as well as dependence on the use (contact proxy). Location (city) was added as a fixed effect to the model. We investigated how knowledge of medicinal plants correlates with the practice of collecting these species.

RESULTS

We did not identify a relationship between the number of individuals per household, gender distribution within the family, and the frequency of medicinal plant use with knowledge about these species. However, we observed a positive, albeit weak, correlation between knowledge of medicinal species and the number of species collected.

CONCLUSION

These results highlight the importance of investigating how young people acquire knowledge about medicinal plants, emphasizing the complex interactions between humans and nature, and providing a basis for future research.

"Draw the sea…": Children's representations of ocean connectivity in Fiji and New Caledonia

In the South Pacific region, marine territories and resources play a crucial role for local communities. Children engage with these territories and resources from an early age onwards. As the next ocean stewards, they are a stakeholder group whose understandings of ocean connectivity and fisheries should be given serious consideration in decision-making processes towards the sustainable use and management of coastal seas. This paper analyses 290 children's drawings from Fiji and New Caledonia, created in 2019 in spontaneous response to the instruction: "Draw the sea and what you and others do in the sea". Exploring the webs of connections with and within the sea revealed by these children's drawings and their own interpretations leads us to discuss children's representations of the sea: (1) beyond a land-sea compartmentation, (2) as a locus of both exploitation and conservation of marine life, and (3) as a 'place-full' space connecting human and more-than-human realms.

Short-term temporal analysis and children's knowledge of the composition of important medicinal plants: the structural core hypothesis

BACKGROUND

Measures of the importance of medicinal plants have long been used in ethnobotany and ethnobiology to understand the influence of social-ecological system factors in the formation of individuals' differential knowledge and use. However, there is still a gap in empirical studies that seek to understand the temporal aspects of this process.

METHODS

To overcome this issue, we used the concept of the structural core of medicinal plants, a theoretical-evolutionary model, which argues that the importance of medicinal plant resources is related to the increase in individual and population fitness. It represents the set of the most effective and available resources that would treat the most common diseases in an environment. This composition of knowledge would be conservative over space and time. To test these questions, we hypothesized that the composition of the structural core remains constant during temporal changes in a social-ecological context, and that the composition of the infantile structural core (new generation) is similar to that of the adults (older generation). For 2 years, we tracked the structure of important medicinal plants among the same 49 residents of a community located in Vale do Catimbau in Pernambuco, Brazil. We also compared the importance of the medicinal plants among two different generations, children/adolescents and adults, in the same space/time context.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

Our results refuted both hypotheses. Regarding the composition of important medicinal plants through temporal variations and for children's learning, our results were not predicted by the model. This suggests that the structural core should not be regarded as a conservative phenomenon, but rather a congenital, dynamic, and plastic occurrence that has adapted to configure itself as a short-term population response to the treatment of local diseases.