Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU (Jan 2006)
Ethnobotany: A new discipline
Abstract
The beginnings of ethnobotanical investigations, viewed through the prism of time, are deemed to belong to the first explorers and adventurers of the Old Continent. They were the first to bring, from their voyages, the information about use of plants in native populations. However, the 19 century brings the precision, scrutiny and accuracy in research. It was in 1873 that the term "aboriginal botany" was used the first time in academia, and only a few years later the new term "ethno-botany" was introduced and defined. In the course of the twentieth century the interest in ethnobotany begins to rise rapidly and the scientists, besides in the use of plants, are also interested in the manner in which people notice and manage them, as well as in the mutual relation between the human community and plants which they depend on. The major basic focus of this discipline is actually the botanical lore of traditional indigenous peoples. Generations of biologists and anthropologists are trying to learn and study various aspects of the "ethno-scientific knowledge", and to establish and explain the difference between ethnobotanical evidence and the traditional knowledge. Therefore there are nowadays three main approaches in the study of traditional botanical knowledge: utilitarian, cognitive, and ecological approaches. The study of TBK is primarily based on the attempt to understand the traditional use of plants so that in co-operation with scientific knowledge of the Western civilization we could more easily collect and keep the ethnobotanical facts to be realized in various projects as a result of the integration of these Systems. The goals of such projects is to secure the rural development and preservation of traditional cultures, as well as the protection of biodiversity while also helping the Western science in discovering new drugs and raw materials invaluable to this world. Ethnobotany is the science in its infancy but it can offer much to the modem mankind, both in the study of our past and in preservation of its traces in many traditional societies. Our task is to preserve - in co-operation with local populations throughout the world - the precious ethnobotanical material and to make attempts to help the modem man in the eternal struggle for health, time, and life.
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