Contributed by Morgan Ruelle Subsistence farmers in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia maintain a rich legacy of plant diversity, including many plants they know how to use as medicine. These farming communities are encountering a number of complex changes, including population growth, new road construction and local effects of global climate change. Favorable market prices induce farmers to increase production of a few cash crops, often...
Contributed by Jeffrey Wall In the fourth century BCE, the Greek traveler Xenophon reported that chestnut was a prominent food for people of the Caucasus (Xenophon ). The tree and its use as food and timber first spread from this region around the Black Sea and eventually to Central and Western Europe (see Figures 3 and 4). The Caucasus and Eastern Turkey remain the center of highest...
Contributed by Rajeev Goyal When the foothill region, known as the “Chure Bawar” or “Little Himalayas,” was first settled, Amrit Bahadur Rai founded the Sawitri Primary School in Yangshila village in 1969, and served as its first headmaster and teacher. Today, Amrit Baaje (“Grandfather Amrit”), as he is known, is also the most knowledgeable medicinal plant expert of Yangshila. He can be found living in a two-story home constructed of...
Contributed by Karim-Aly Kassam Indigenous peoples have the right to their traditional medicines and to maintain their health practices, including the conservation of their vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals. Indigenous individuals also have the right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007, Article 24, Section 1). Sovereignty is...
Contributed by Alain Cuerrier and Sarah-Lan Mathez-Stiefel This issue of the ISE Newsletter focuses on ethnomedicine, sometimes used as a synonym for traditional or indigenous medicine. Ethnomedicine usually refers to the health beliefs, knowledge and practices derived from indigenous cultures, as opposed to the conceptual and practical frameworks of biomedicine or modern medicine, a misnomer since ethnomedicine is still a modern tool in many...
