Contact: Abdolbaset Ghorbani Phone: +49 71145923602 Email: ghorbani@uni-hohenheim.deJoachim Sauerborn Phone: +49 71145922385 Email: sauerbn@uni-hohenheim.deGerhard Langenberger, Phone: +49 71145923624 Email: langenbe@uni-hohenheim.deUniversity of Hohenheim, Institute for Plant production and Agroecology in the Tropics and Subtropics, Garbenstraße 13, 70599 Stuttgart, Germany

Internet: www.lilac.uni-hohenheim.de LILAC project is funded by BMBF and MOST

Ethnobotanical and Ethnoecological Knowledge of Natural Resource Use and Management: a Case of Hani People from SW China

Abdolbaset Ghorbani, Joachim Sauerborn, Gerhard Langenberger

ResultsThe Hani use 143 wild food and 199 medicinal species from differentvegetation types. The most important edible species in Hani cultural domainare Diplazium esculentum (Retz.) Sw. (SI= 0.57), Oenanthe javanica (Bl.) L.(0.43), Solanum americanum Mill. (0.38) and Musa acuminata Colla (0.49).The most important medicinal plants are listed in table 1. Field margins, roadsides and stream banks near rice fields are important source of edible plantsfor Hani. The majority of the medicinal species were collected from forest(51.9%), followed by fallow land (22.52%), arable fields (14.5%), andhomegardens (11.08%). Different ecosystems ranking based on importanceindices are given in table 2.

Conclusion Hani prefer different ecosystems as source of medicinal and foodplants.

Some medicinal plants are economically important and collected inhigh volumes, but they are not culturally ranked as important plants.

In contrast to food plants, knowledge of medicinal plants is nothomogenously distributed among Hani.

Easy access, combination of different habitats and species, speciallypioneer species along with cultural aspects would be the reason forselection of marginal vegetations as source of useful plants.

Table 1: Ranking important medicinal species based on different indices. See methods for explanation of indices.

Table 2: Importance of different ecosystems providing medicinal plants based on importance indices

AcknowledgementsWe are thankful to villagers for providing us their information and also thanks to Prof. Tau Goda and Mr. Liu Feng for their help in plant identification.

ReferencesCook, F.E.M., 1995. Economic botany data collection standard. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, United Kingdom.Tardio, J., Pardo-de Santayana, M., 2008. Cultural importance indices: A comparative analysis based on the useful wild plants of southern Cantabria (northern Spain). Economic Botany 62(1), 24-39.

11% Endemic 11% Weed

2% Naturalized

76% Common

flora

Map of the Hani villages in NRWNNR and location of NRWNNR in China

IntroductionNaban River Watershed National Nature Reserve (NRWNNR) located in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, SW China, is rich in biological and cultural diversity. Plant diversity includes 1954 species of vascular plants, many of them endemic to the area. Five ethnic minorities are living in NRWNNR including Hani. Hani are living in 7 villages in the highlands of the area (Map1). They have their own community forest, and practiced slash and burn agriculture for a long time. The Hani use a wide variety of biodiversity products from different land use types. This study aimed to identify the most culturally important medicinal and food plants based on different importance indices and also most important land use types regarding providing useful plants for Hani.

MethodsData were collected by freelisting interviews, semi-structured interviews, field interviews and botanical sample collections. Botanical samples were identified scientifically. Scientific names nomenclature follows the checklist of Flora of China. Data were analysed by use-reports. Importance indices including relative frequency of citation (RFC), cultural importance index (CI), Smith’s Salience index (SI) were calculated. Freelisting data were analyzed using Anthropac 4.98.

Species

Indices Ranking

SI RFC CI SI RFC CI

Dendrobium crepidatum Lindl. ex Paxt. 0.41 0.112 0.113 1 8 13

Aristolochia sp. 0.306 0.306 0.306 2 1 1

Microstegium ciliatum (Trin.) A. Camus 0.129 0.096 0.096 3 15 17Eupatorium coelestinum L. 0.119 0.129 0.129 4 6 11

Litse amartabanica (Kurz) Hook. f. 0.116 0.112 0.129 5 11 12

Psidium guajava L. 0.103 0.22 0.241 6 2 3

Toddalia asiatica (L.) Lam. 0.095 0.08 0.112 7 20 14

Tacca chantrieri Andre 0.091 0.21 0.225 8 3 5

Chloranthus spicatus (Thumb.) Makino 0.067 0.117 0.274 9 7 2

Verbena officinalis L. 0.062 0.193 0.241 10 4 4

Artemisia argyi H. Lev. & Vaniot. 0.058 0.112 0.161 11 9 7

Dactylicapnos scandens (D. Don) Hutch. 0.057 0.096 0.096 12 14 16

Acorus calamus L. 0.051 0.08 0.161 13 16 6

Clerodendrum serratum var. amplexifolium Moldenke 0.051 0.096 0.129 14 13 10

Ecosystem SI RFC CI

1- Forest 0.018 0.039 0.045

2- Fallow land 0.015 0.032 0.039

3- Farm land 0.011 0.032 0.038

4- Homegardens 0.015 0.041 0.051

Burning community forest and converting it into farmlandA view of Bongang Hani village A Hani couple with traditional clothes

Drying rhizomes of medicinal fern Drynaria propinqua (Wall. ex Mett.) Bedd.

Asparagus subscandens Wang et S.C. Chen, medicinal, tubers

Solanum indicum L., food & medicine, fruit

Polygonatum cirrhifolium (Wall.) Royle, Medicinal plant, flowering

Source of used medicinal species

Tincture from different medicinal plants

Lobelia clavata E. Wimm, medicinal plant, flowering