towards community based conservation of medicinal plants in western ghats-india a case study of...

8/14/2019 Towards community based conservation of medicinal plants in western ghats-India A case study of irula tribal community in Sigur plateau

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TOWARDS COMMUNITYBASED

CONSERVATIONOFMEDICINALPLANTSIN

WESTERN GHATS A CASESTUDYOF

IRULACOMMUNITYIN SIGURPLATEAU


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Aim :

The identification of conservation status of

medicinal plant species in the tribalsettlements and to assess the threats to

the selected species.


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Objectives :

To identify the conservation status of the medicinal plant

species in selected tribal settlement.

To assess the threats for the selected medicinal plant

species.

To evaluate the community based conservation efforts

for medicinal plants in the study area.

To perform the SWOT analysis for working towards

sustainable harvesting in the region.


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Methodology:

Stratified Random Sampling was used to

select the knowledgeable individuals.

In Age wise sampling the population was

divided into three groups 10 20, 20 30

and > 35.


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1. Participatory mapping of medicinal plants habitats.

2. Documentation of medicinal plants and their uses.

3. Assessment of threats.

4. Analysis of species abundance and rarity.

5. Special emphasis given to specific plant species with very

high medicinal value as well as rarity.

6. Historical trend diagram for the medicinal plants.

7. Documentation and ranking of tribal diseases.

8. Assessing the IUCN status of the region for the conservation

of medicinal plants.


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ANALYSIS:

Ethno ecological Importance Index (EIV) -This new tool was used to combine cultural

data with ecological data in order to assign a cultural value to vegetation types assources of useful medicinal plants.

EIV = ^N x=1 (S) (nx/Nx)

Where

EIV = Ethno ecological importance value for a particular habitat.

S = Salience of speciesx (calculated by Smiths S) (Smith 1993, Smith &Borgatti 1997).

N = The total number of species found in the study.

x = The individual species found in the study.

Nx = The sum of individuals of species x found in all habitats under study.

nx = The total number of individuals of species x found in one habitat. Thus, the EIV of a habitat is the sum of the ethno ecological importance of

each useful species contained within it. The ethno ecological importance of

each species is the product of the species cultural salience (S) times its

relative abundance (nx/Nx).


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Consensus factor:

A consensus factor (Fic) for testing homogeneity of informant's knowledge

followed methods of Trotter and Logan. A consensus factor of Fic is givenby:

The factor provides a range of 0 to 1, where a high value acts as a good

indicator for a high rate of informant consensus.

Nur is the number of use-reports of informants for particular illness usage,(

where a use-report is a single record for use of a plant mentioned by an

individual,)

Nt refers to the number of species used for a particular illness category for

all informants.


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The majority of illness types are grouped into predefined

ethno/economic botany categories , with the additions ofa few other illness categories that were commonly

mentioned during our interviews because they were

prevalent in these communities.

The use of "general categories" is adopted here as

recommended by other ethno botanical researchers .


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Chi-square test :

To evaluate the average number of

medicinal plant species reported and used by

each informant in the villages, to determine if there

is any significant difference between female and

male practitioners with respect to the knowledge

and use of medicinal plants.

To evaluate the status of medicinal plant

resources with respect to plant part collected for

medicinal purposes, plant form used and source of

collection.


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The Spearman rank correlation:

This test was used to determine

whether there was a significant correlation

between the age of informants and the

number of medicinal plant speciesreported and used by each informant.


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Transect mapping:

Transect mapping is a tool used to describe the

location and distribution of resources, the

landscape and main land uses. It further allow

participants to identify constraints and

opportunities with specific reference to locations or

particular ecosystems situated along the transect.

The tool involves outdoor activities, on-field

observation, discussions and diagramming. One

output is a transect map.


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Free listing:

Successive free listing was used tointerview informants providing data for the

consensus analysis.


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SWOT analysis

Estimation of harvesting rates. Analysis of harvesting methods of

medicinal plants and its impact on the

regeneration of medicinal plants. Grazing by cattle and its impacts on

medicinal plants near the edge areas of

the reserved forests. Conservation planning and strategies in

the tribal settlements.


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Shannon weiner index :

The formula for calculating the Shannon

diversity index is

H = - pi lnpi,

Where pi, the proportional abundance of the ithspecies = (ni / N).

H= Shannon wiener index.

Pi= probability of occurrence

Shannon wiener index takes into account theevenness of the abundances of species.


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USE VALUE: used to assess the local

importance of each species.

The Use-Value was calculated using the formula

UV = Ui/n

(Rossato et al. 1999; Silva & Albuquerque 2004;

modified from Phillips and Gentry 1993a,1993b),

where: Ui = the number of uses mentioned by

each informant for a given species,

n = the total number of informants.

Ref : Evaluating Two Quantitative Ethno botanical TechniquesUlysses P. Albuquerque, Reinaldo F. P. Lucena, Jlio M. Monteiro,

Alissandra T. N. Florentino and Ceclia de Ftima C. B. R. Almeida

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