Rural depopulation in semi-arid Mediterranean regions is progressively eroding the biocultural landscapes that have sustained both biodiversity and local ecological knowledge (LEK) over centuries. Documenting how ethnobotanical knowledge structures the cultural value of species — and where communities perceive their distributions to occur — is essential for conservation planning in territories undergoing rapid demographic and land-use change. We conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with local informants in the Los Vélez region (Almería, SE Spain). Using a two-step protocol, informants first selected and ranked the four most culturally important plant species from a panel of eight. They then evaluated 14 traditional use categories for each selected species on a four-point importance scale. Differences in perceived importance were modelled using a cumulative link mixed model (CLMM). Finally, informants drew polygons on a digital map indicating where they perceived each species to occur; these were compared with occurrence records from the SIVIM database (10 × 10 km grid). Thymus vulgaris and Salvia rosmarinus were the most frequently selected species (n = 24 and 23, respectively). Juniperus sabina, despite low selection frequency, received the highest mean perceived importance (x̄ = 3.33), associated particularly with cultural identity and special significance. Macrochloa tenacissima emerged as the primary provider of material-based provisioning services. The CLMM confirmed significant effects of both use category (LRT = 106.03, df = 13, p < 0.001) and plant species (LRT = 29.46, df = 5, p < 0.001) on perceived importance, with medicinal and food uses receiving the highest scores and poisons and language the lowest. Participatory maps showed high spatial concordance with SIVIM records for Juniperus sabina and Macrochloa tenacissima, while informants underestimated the northern distribution of Salvia rosmarinus and Thymus vulgaris. LEK about culturally important plant species in Los Vélez remains active despite decades of rural depopulation. Cultural importance is shaped by a complex interplay of ecological distribution, livelihood history, and symbolic significance, rather than by abundance alone. These findings underscore the urgency of integrating LEK into biocultural conservation strategies that recognise local communities as legitimate stewards of their territory.
Meliponiculture has long been an integral part of the social, economic, and religious traditions of many indigenous and ethnic communities around the world, including those in India. Stingless bees play a crucial role in tropical and sub-tropical ecosystems, where they contribute significantly to agricultural production through pollination and support biodiversity conservation. Several indigenous communities in South India practice traditional meliponiculture and utilize stingless bees and their products for ethno-medicinal purposes, food, and a variety of other cultural and economic use. Ethnobiological surveys were conducted across 13 districts in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Goa between May 2024 and June 2025. Using snowball sampling, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 79 respondents representing 15 ethnic communities to document traditional stingless bee management practices and the medicinal, nutritional, cultural, and other uses of stingless bee products. We documented 44 distinct uses of stingless bees and their products, which were grouped into eight major categories: food, medicine, veterinary medicine, crafts, spiritual beliefs, religious rituals, cosmetics, and plant growth promotion. The Relative Cultural Importance (RCI) of stingless bees among the ethnic communities of South India was also assessed. Among the communities surveyed, the Brahmin community exhibited the highest RCI, followed by the Kunbi community, reflecting their strong cultural association with stingless bees. Most communities rely on destructive methods to harvest stingless bee products; however, the Brahmin community practices sustainable meliponiculture using traditional hives made from coconut shells, bamboo poles, mud pots, and hollow logs. Notably, our informants reported, for the first time, the use of stingless bee pollen as a traditional treatment for sac brood disease in Asian honeybees, representing a potentially valuable contribution to ethnoveterinary knowledge and sustainable apicultural practices. This study expands the documentation of traditional stingless bee knowledge across diverse communities in South India and identifies opportunities for sustainable meliponiculture. The findings support community-based training in non-destructive harvesting, the adoption of locally appropriate hive technologies, and improved processing and marketing of stingless bee products to support rural livelihoods and pollinator conservation. Further investigation of the newly documented medicinal and agricultural applications is recommended.
Africa carries a share of the world’s linguistic, biological, and pastoral diversity out of all proportion to the attention its knowledge systems receive in the international scientific record, and it is home to the youngest population on Earth. African ethnobiology rests on decades of work—from the People and Plants Initiative and the Local and Indigenous Knowledge Systems (LINKS) programme of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to university programmes and regional networks across the continent—yet much of this work remains under-represented in the global literature, difficult to compare across studies, and hard to synthesise in meta-analyses. Building on earlier recommendations for field studies, this essay offers practical, low-cost recommendations addressed to early-career African ethnobiologists. We discuss eight recurring bottlenecks—description without a guiding question, a plant-centred analytical lens, inequitable “parachute” collaboration, resource and infrastructure constraints, weak reporting and predatory publishing, ethics and sovereignty gaps, accelerating knowledge erosion, and professional isolation—and pair each with concrete solutions. The toolkit includes a cross-species documentation matrix that records, for every plant use, the associated domestic animals, wild fauna, fungi, microorganisms, and insects; clearly articulated research questions that can, where appropriate, be developed into testable hypotheses; comparative and phylogenetic analysis; a diachronic lens grounded in long-term engagement with communities; and reporting adapted from the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) statement. We present hypothesis testing as one valuable approach among several, alongside exploratory, ethnographic, and community-led inquiry. Situated within the One Health paradigm, this approach can turn features often framed as disadvantages—remoteness, pastoral livelihoods, holistic knowledge—into a scientific comparative advantage and a foundation for resilient rural economies, while increasing the visibility of African researchers in the global community of practice.
Medicinal plants (MP) have long been used for magico-religious medicinal purposes in Ethiopia. However, much of the ethnobotanical knowledge remained underexplored and poorly documented. This study focused on documenting the ethnomedicinal knowledge of the local Oromo community in the Agarfa and Lega-hida districts, highlighting previously unreported medicinal uses and associated practices to support the validation of claims about medicinal plant healing potential. Eighty-one informants were purposefully selected and interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire, focus group discussions, guided field observations, and specimen collection. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to compute ethnomedicinal knowledge. The significance of documented MPs was further evaluated using quantitative indices along with Spearman’s correlation analysis. A total of 145 MPs were documented; of these, 69
Medicinal plants have been used as sources of cosmetic and personal products since time immemorial. In this study, plant species used as cosmetics in the Eastern Cape Province and associated traditional ecological knowledge, their availability, and strategies needed to conserve the species were documented. Seventy-nine participants from six villages selected using purposive and snowball sampling were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires and complemented with focus group discussions and participant observations. Ethnobotanical data, including local names of the plant species, cosmetic applications and plant parts used were documented. The ethnomedicinal data were analyzed using cultural importance index (CI), fidelity levels (FL), informant consensus factor (ICF), relative frequency of citation (RFC), use-value (UV) index and each documented species was searched on the Red List of South African Plants database to determine its conservation status or category. Thirty-six species of medicinal plants were used as traditional cosmetics in the study area. Herbs (39
