Sub-theme 7. Global health commons between pandemics and glocal health
Panel 7.3.
The commons of ‘wild’ edible and medicinal plants under threat
Edible wild plants have been a cornerstone of food security of indigenous/traditional food systems. Today edible wild plants still increase household food security and resilience to market and environmental shocks in many places, and provide cash income for local communities. However, edible wild plants are largely ignored in land use planning because, as integral part of common pool resources such as forests, collective ownership and governance institutions of the resources are not recognized. A similar process can be observed with medicinal plants, which also often grow on land managed in common property, such as forests. As a result of increasing privatization and land use change, traditional knowledge about the biodiversity of edible and medicinal plants is rapidly being lost. This process is enhanced by government approaches to biodiversity conservation, which is often based on fortress conservation, excluding previous local users from accessing the resources. This panel calls for transdisciplinary approaches researching the links between edible and medicinal plants and the commons, from the fields of feminist political ecology, political economy, ethnobotany, medical anthropology, and food security. We therefore ask for paper contributions highlighting how edible and medicinal plants are managed as commons and how these commons are under threat.
1. Food security from the forest: the case of baobab (Adansonia digitata L) in Boundou region, Senegal
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute/University of Basel, Switzerland
This paper contributes to the debate on how forest plays a role in diets and nutrition security using the example of wild fruit (Baobab) found in the Boundou Region in Senegal. This region is rich in biodiversity and natural resources that the inhabitants intend to protect which has made the area a protected area since 2009. Wild edible fruits hold great potential for improving human diets, especially in agricultural societies like Senegal. It appears that the Boundou region has benefited from its designation as a protected area. There is free access to gather and collect wild fruits such as Baobab fruit within the protected area. While access to pick this wild fruit in this protected area is free to everybody in the community, which is not often the case in other protected areas, this had contributed to food security by allowing the population to access these nutritious foods when they may not have other sources of sustenance. Although there are rules guiding the collection of this wild fruit but one could say what is allowed and not allowed in this reserve is not negotiated with local people. During pre-colonial times, the gathering of baobab fruits and leaves from the forest to cook in different ways was one of the major ways to cope with food shortages. However, the range of strategies for coping with food shortage is very different today from that which existed prior to the colonial period. In this present time especially during the dry season when there are shortfalls in agricultural crop production, the majority of the population depends on the gathering, processing, and sale of baobab fruits from woodlands. The commodification of these wild fruits brings essential cash income to many households, which can be used to purchase food, thereby improving food security
2. For a sustainable health and solidarity pact
Réseau de recherche en santé des populations du Québec, Canada
Fostering an ethic of cooperation (Sennett, 2014), a participatory ethic (Manzo & Brightbill, 2007), contributes to building a healthy community that can improve access to a safe and healthy environment for everyone. Thus, from the perspective of the Commons, becoming a partner in a learning ecosystem, in which each member learns from the other, means mobilizing for change and the common good. But how can we foster a co-creative and citizen culture of health, which increases our individual and collective capacities to decide for ourselves and supports the creation of a health commons (freely reproducible, helping each person to live with dignity in health)? In addition to introducing the population to healing collectives, making more and more room for collective intelligence, for cross-fertilized knowledge that favors creativity and innovation, allows the empowerment of the actors involved and each one to adapt to a world in constant and rapid change. Faced with the necessity and urgency of cooperation through the co-creation of realistic and tenable measures, based on our coexistence and the peace to be regained with Nature, our socio-ethical reflection aims at better sharing some of this knowledge to : on the one hand, to lower the barriers of access to knowledge and to the recognition of our capacities (in an emancipatory perspective of self-determination); on the other hand, to reduce these inequalities by integrating more and in a different way the people whose health issues are discussed in the participatory research, because they are the first ones concerned.
3. Assesment of Indigenous Knowledge and Conservation Strategies of Medicianl Plants in Northern Tanzania
College of African Wildlife Management, Tanzania
Plants play a greater role in improving human and other animal welfare through herbal medicine, food, shelter source of rainfall, and other benefits. Indigenous knowledge is a key to the conservation of medicinal plants which are passed from one generation to another generation. This study assessed the role of indigenous knowledge and plant conservation methods in northern Tanzania. Data were gathered via a questionnaire and interviews with key informants. The results revealed 70 plant species belonging to 29 families used for treatments of more than 28 human diseases in Northern Tanzania. Warburgia salutaris is most used plant species that treated more than seven diseases such as cough, asthma, malaria, fever and ulcers. The most used plant parts used was barks where 40% revealed root (33%), leaves (21%) fruits (4%) and the least used part was flower where only 2% was used for medicinal purpose. The main growth plant form used as medicine was a tree, shrub herbs, and climbers. It was also revealed that the processing of plant medicine involves boiling, grinding, soaking in water, and chewing. Results revealed that barks were the most part used compared to other parts due to the high possession of active compounds for the treatment of disease compared to other. Five conservation methods namely; Selective harvesting, planting some medicinal, keeping name location and use of some plant secreted, conserving through sacred plants/forest, and collecting only dead plants. The study showed that medicinal plant plays an important role in providing primary health care to the rural and urban communities in northern Tanzania and it was advised that indigenous knowledge should be preserved and promoted to protect medicinal plants.
4. From health commons to commodification and back: medicinal plant knowledge and use among women in rural Tanzania (Kilombero district)
Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Switzerland
Medicinal plants can be considered a health commons because they provide a common resource for the health of people in a community. A health commons may thus be defined as a shared resource for the collective benefit of a community that can include health services, medicines and other products, knowledge and information, and care. A health commons ensures that all members of a community have access to the resources they need to maintain their health and well-being. In many communities, plant knowledge for healing has been passed down through the generations as a knowledge commons, creating a long tradition of how to use medicinal plants for specific healing purposes. Plants, which are collected or purchased locally, are used to treat a wide range of illnesses. By preserving and using this local knowledge, communities contribute to maintaining their own health and cultural belonging. At the same time, medicinal plants are increasingly commoditized and marketed to potential users. This commodification of ‘African medicine’ has created a rush for certain herbal medicines such as immune boosters in urban areas, while on the other hand, with increasing land use change, access to wild plants for local use became scarcer due to the privatization of land. Based on insights from research conducted in rural Tanzania I will trace and describe the use, sharing, and preserving of local medicinal knowledge used for women’s health, with a focus on how women manage collective knowledge.
