In this video, we are going to talk about the interesting world of ethnobotany. First of all, we are going to define ethnobotany. And then, we are going to learn from experiences of people who have worked on this research area. So we can define ethnobotany as the study of interrelationships between people and plants. So more concretely, it studies the region's plans and their practical uses for humans in the traditional knowledge of local communities, and the culture of the people. So an ethnobotanist strives to document all these practical uses of the local Flora that is given by the local communities, and the traditional knowledge of these communities. And the completion of the information is about the users of the plans, users such as food medicines, or clothes, or home button science, for example, normally, an ethnobotanist makes all these company compilation of information through interviews to this local communities, so that the transmission of the knowledge is an oral transmission. Okay, another important aspect of ethnabotany, is that this is the basis for new sources of medicinal products of plant origin. Plants can have therapeutic users, because inside of some plants, we can find concrete substances called active ingredients that can have an effect in our bodies in human bodies. So that, finally, they can be used as medicine products or four different types of therapies, but it's important to validate these anatomical information before it is used as a medic ahmed signal product. So an example is the aspirin, the precursor of the aspirin was was discovered in Salix Alba, a type of willow tree. And then, after knowing that this salicylic acid has some proper some medicine or properties, it, nowadays, it has been more studied, and we can, it is in fact, this sialic acid is produced chemically, and its use as a mad scene, and we could find many other examples as this one. So now, I would like to introduce Montserrat Gispert Cruells. She has worked extensively with indigenous communities of Mexico, and especially, in the future relation studying the aspects of food culture. We can learn from her, and with her words, we can define a little bit more. What's ethnabotany, as she said, and ethnabotany is a discipline that claims that plans our culture, and the plants are half and generate culture. So she emphasized this idea that plans are very related with culture. Now, I would like to introduce Dr. Victoria Reyes, and she has been working with that concept, which is a vile cultural diversity. Basically, the idea is that there is a relationship between biological diversity and cultural diversity. And there is evidence that there is an overlap between the most biologically diverse city areas in the world, and most culturally diverse regions of the world. So she has done many research in, for example, in Bolivian Amazon Hunter article tourist societies, and there, she has find many evidences of how culture, changes in their culture change also the landscape and indicators of biodiversity. So this is another evidence of how that is this relation between cultures, and via that biodiversity and biological diversity, another, and the button is I would like to introduce, is Dr. Ina Vanderbroek. She studies dynamics of medicine plan knowledge in rural areas, and also, in urban areas. In fact, she has specialized on the traditional knowledge of plants by Caribbean immigrants in New York City, and her work gives evidence that, nowadays, there's a still the an important use of wild plants by many different types of communities in rural areas, and also, in urban areas, and that these knowledge remains popular. Another and the botanist I would like to talk about, is Nancy Turner. Then, Dr. Nancy Turner has work with First Nation elders, and food cultural specialist in Northeastern North America, and she has been collaborated with the indigenous communities, and in the idea of promoting, and knowing, and retaining the traditional knowledge of plants and evidence that they have. It includes vocabulary related to plants and environments. It includes also the role of plants in narratives and ceremonies language belief systems, and also, the use of the plants for medicine, and clothes, and food, an important concept that Nancy Turner has been working on is the concept of ethno, sorry, it's a concept of an ecology, which is how people know and understand the ecosystems. So now, I'm going to give an example of this ethnoecology. Dr. Betty Rono has been working in Eastern Kenya. There, that there is a traditional knowledge of the local communities concretely the separatist that, that day, the separates and these communities can predict things like the length of a drought episode, for example. And what happens, is that the global warming has changed environment conditions as we know, and so, this traditional way of prediction has been altered for these communities and acceptors of these communities. So Dr. Betty Rono, that works in this arid and semi-arid lands of Eastern Kenya, is interested in finding links between these traditional knowledge, and this traditional predictions and the linkage between these, and the scientific knowledge and also the early warning systems. Okay, so to conclude, I would like to think, think about that. These ethabotany is in fact an important issue for conservation. If we don't collect all this information, which is not written in books, which is only transmitted orally from one generation to the other, if we don't collect all this information, all this knowledge can be loosed, and this knowledge of many generations and hundreds of years will will be loose for for nowadays societies. And since we want to live in a sustainable wall, it's important to know from the experiences and from the knowledge of this local communities that are in contact with nature. So finally, I conclude with a quotation from Nancy Turner, which is this popular knowledge of indigenous, and local people have often been overlooked in the past, but it's necessary. In fact, it's critical for us to understand it, if you want to make policies that help us to live in a more sustainable world. [SOUND]
