All posts tagged with ethnobotany

Plant species worldwide face an increasing barrage of threats to their survival. The deliberate collection of rare plants poses a far greater threat to wild plant species. In Wild Plants in Trade (1992), the reasons and effects of wild collection on plants for cultivation and international trade can be found. The trade of orchids, bulbs, cycads, palms and tree ferns, cacti and other succulent plants, carnivorous plants and air plants were introduced in detail in the second half of this book, as well as the attempts to control the collection of these plants by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and governments.

The conservation movement today encompasses more than the physical management of habitat to preserve plants and animals. Richard Evans Schultes (1915-2001) epitomized the modern conservationist by coupling his taxonomic work on plants with research on the botanical knowledge and culture of local people. Known as the “father of ethnobotany” Schultes spent almost fourteen years deep within the rainforests of the Amazon learning from multiple Indigenous tribes about their languages, medicines, and relationships to plants.