Abstract
This study was developed as part of the project “Studies for Environmental and Cultural Sustainability of the Fulni-ô Medical System: Office on handling medicinal plants”. The Fulni-ô people are located in Pernambuco State, Northeastern Brazil. One of the components of this project was an ethnobotanical diagnosis of the indigenous land, where a phytosociological survey was performed in an area of Caatinga vegetation, located at Ouricuri settlement. Based on these ethnobotanical data, we calculated a conservation priority index aiming to rank species that should receive immediate attention from the Fulni-ô people. We identified 44 woody plants, 50% of which have a medicinal use. Among these, six plants were considered highly vulnerable and in need of immediate conservationist attention, in order to ensure the perpetuation of these species and the sustainability of traditional therapeutic practices of the Fulni-ô: Anadenanthera colubrina, Myracrodruon urundeuva, Lippia sp., Spondias tuberosa, Maytenus rigida, and Sideroxylon obtusifolium. We recommend the direct involvement of the Fulni-ô people in the conservation and the management of local resources by implementing a management plan and monitoring strategies for the populations of plants considered most important by the indigenous group.
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Notes
According to Thiollent (2005:16), the research-action is “a kind of social research based on empirical evidence, which is designed and performed in close association with an action or resolving a collective problem, and where the researchers and participants that represent the situation or problem are involved in a cooperative or participatory way”.
The concept holders of traditional knowledge refer to the practitioners of the Fulni-ô medical system. Those people are characterized by focused knowledge of health care practices, related to health maintenance and diseases treatments. They are political and religious leaders, also with profound knowledge on cosmology, the Ouricuri ritual and the environment. The holders of knowledge are classified in the following categories: shaman (pajé), elders, prayers (both male and female), and midwives. There were also two people who did not fit in these two categories and were great supporters of the Project, Xyce and Txhleká, as called themselves, experts in medicinal plants and "garrafeiro”—a person who prepares the medicine using generally medicinal plants and other raw materials.
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks are owed to the Fulni-ô people for their support and enthusiasm for the project; to the anthropologist Luciane Ouriques Ferreira, Manager of the Area of Traditional Indigenous Medicine, VIGISUS II/FUNASA Project; to Sr. José Francisco de Sá (Xyce), Project coordinator and traditional knowledge holder; to Sr. Gláucio Machado (Txhleká), traditional knowledge holder; to Sr. Luiz Carlos Frederico da Silva, President of the Associação Mista Cacique Procópio Sarapó (AMCPS); to the following members of the indigenous team: Ubiram Leite Machado, Surama Correia Darcca, Tanawá Correia Darcca, Jussiara Veríssimo, Nerivaldo Alves dos Santos e João Veríssimo Machado, Almirair Cunha Pontes, and Tairam de Leite de Sá; Maria Eliane Barreto da Silva, Project pharmacist; Fabíola W. Zibetti, Project lawyer; Dr. Cláudio Fortes Garcia Lorenzo, Project physician.
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de Albuquerque, U.P., Soldati, G.T., Sieber, S.S. et al. Rapid ethnobotanical diagnosis of the Fulni-ô Indigenous lands (NE Brazil): floristic survey and local conservation priorities for medicinal plants. Environ Dev Sustain 13, 277–292 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-010-9261-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-010-9261-9