Dissertation Research: Ethnomedicine of Tanzania in Ecological Perspective

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The overwhelming majority of people in developing countries rely on medicinal plants for primary health care and for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, yet these plants go without protection, monitoring, or even a comprehension as to the context or extent of their collection and use. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist will study the circumstances of medicinal plant use and management in Tanga, Tanzania. Using a specific location with high biological and cultural diversity as an example, this study utilizes participatory, ethnographic, and ethnobotanical methods to investigate local ecological knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors related to natural resource management in general and to medicinal plants in particular; the cultural, ethnomedical, economic, and ecological contexts of medicinal plants; the potential ecological consequences of management by collectors; and the selection criteria used to identify particular plants for diverse uses. The research will include medicinal plant market surveys; multiple semi- and unstructured interviews with 3 groups of medicinal plant collectors including lay, commercial, and specialist collectors; a local ecological knowledge survey with the same collectors; careful observation of medicinal plant collecting and management activities; and an ecological experiment. With assistance from local botanists, the ecological experiment will test two opposing hypotheses about harvesting and management impacts on biodiversity: that areas subjected to more harvest are less biologically diverse (which suggests unsustainable practices), and that areas subjected to more harvest are more biologically diverse because collectors promote the growth of individual plants or populations of plants, (which suggests management is occurring, not mere extraction). The broader impacts of this research involve strengthening existing links and building new links between Tanzanian researchers and U.S. researchers, and conveying the research findings in meaningful and accessible ways to government health planners, NGOs working in Tanzania, and to the research communities themselves. By privileging local people and their ecological knowledge, this research will contribute to the design of culturally appropriate resource management and to the sustainable use of medicinal plants. The research has the potential to improve both ecological conservation and human health efforts in Tanzania and to serve as a model for other regions of the world that rely on medicinal plants for managing health. This project is cofunded by the Office of International Science and Engineering.