Forest as Stronghold of Local Ecological Practice: Currently Used Wild Food Plants in Polesia, Northern Ukraine

Local ecological practice (LEP, e.g., the everyday practice of collecting and using plants, including wild food plants) is shaped by nature (available local resources) and culture (local perceptions and knowledge on their usability), including a multitude of factors, among which language and geographical or cultural separation have been found to play crucial roles in affecting biocultural diversity. Also, proximity to the forest has been shown to increase the use of plants. We conducted ethnobotanical fieldwork within eastern and western regions of Ukrainian Polesia, during which we interviewed 118 people. Through semi-structured interviews, we recorded the distribution of the current uses of 70 wild food taxa. The analysis of use records revealed homogeneous distribution of use despite the geographical distance and different spoken dialects; however, we were able to single out the highly sylvan region of eastern Polesia as the area with highest biocultural diversity for the use of wild food plants. The results suggest that in the context of the overall homogenization of local ecological knowledge, the continued existence of unintended contact with nature through living and working in the forest may be the primary factor maintaining the broader LEP in the sylvan area of eastern Polesia. Місцева екологічна практика (MЕП, що включає повсякденну практику збору та використання дикорослих рослин у їжу) формується природою (місцевими ресурсами) та культурою (місцеві знання про їх використання), що включає безліч чинників, серед яких мова та географічне або культурне відокремлення відіграють вирішальну роль у впливі на біокультурне різноманіття. Також показано, що близькість до лісу збільшує використання рослин. Ми проводили етноботанічні польові роботи у двох областях Українського Полісся, в ході яких ми провели інтерв’ю з 118 людьми. За допомогою напівструктурованих інтерв’ю ми задокументували поточне використання 70 таксонів дикорослих рослин у їжу. Аналіз записів про вживання свідчить про однорідний розподіл використання, незважаючи на географічне розташування та різні розмовні діалекти; однак, ми змогли виділити лісистий регіон Східного Полісся як територію з найвищим біокультурним різноманіттям використання дикорослих рослин уїжу. Результати свідчать, що в контексті загальної гомогенізації місцевих екологічних знань, продовження існування контакту з природою живучи та працюючи в лісі може бути основним чинником, який підтримує ширшу MЕПу в лісовій зоні Східного Полісся

Conocimientos tradicionales relativos a la biodiversidad agrícola

La biodiversidad agrícola, a diferencia de la silvestre, requiere la acción continuada de los agricultores para su conservación, ya que las plantas cultivadas dependen de la intervención humana, con actividades como la selección, la siembra, el abonado, la poda u otras prácticas agrícolas para su supervivencia. Desde la revolución agrícola del Neolítico hasta la actualidad, estas prácticas y conocimientos han ido generando y conservando una gran diversidad, amenazada a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX por las causas que se han indicado anteriormente.Peer reviewe

Knowledge transmission patterns at the border: ethnobotany of Hutsuls living in the Carpathian Mountains of Bukovina (SW Ukraine and NE Romania)

Background Cross-border research is a novel and important tool for detecting variability of ecological knowledge. This is especially evident in regions recently divided and annexed to different political regimes. Therefore, we conducted a study among Hutsuls, a cultural and linguistic minority group living in Northern and Southern Bukovina (Ukraine and Romania, respectively). Indeed, in the 1940s, a border was created: Northern Bukovina was annexed by the USSR while Southern Bukovina remained part of the Kingdom of Romania. In this research, we aim to document uses of plants for food and medicinal preparations, discussing the different dynamics of Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) transmission among Hutsuls living in Ukraine and Romania. Methods Field research was conducted using convenience and snowball sampling techniques to recruit 31 Hutsuls in Ukraine and 30 in Romania for participation in semi-structured interviews regarding the use of plants for medicinal and food preparation purposes and the sources of such knowledge. Results The interviews revealed that, despite a common cultural and linguistic background, ethnobotanical knowledge transmission occurs in different ways on each side of the border. Family is a primary source of ethnobotanical knowledge transmission on both sides of the border; however, in Romania, knowledge from other sources is very limited, whereas in Ukraine interviewees reported several other sources including books, magazines, newspapers, the Internet and television. This is especially evident when analysing the wild plants used for medicinal purposes as we found 53 taxa that were common to both, 47 used only in Ukraine and 11 used only in Romania. While Romanian Hutsuls used almost exclusively locally available plants, Ukrainian Hutsuls often reported novel plants such as Aloe vera, Aronia melanocarpa and Elaeagnus rhamnoides. Knowledge related to these plants was transferred by sources of knowledge other than oral transmission among members of the same family. Therefore, this may imply hybridization of the local body of knowledge with foreign elements originating in the Soviet context which has enriched the corpus of ethnobotanical knowledge held by Ukrainian Hutsuls. Conclusions While ethnobotanical knowledge among Romanian Hutsuls is mainly traditional and vertically transmitted, among Ukrainian Hutsuls there is a considerable proportion of LEK that is transmitted from other (written and visual) sources of knowledge. This cross-border research reveals that despite a common cultural background, socio-political scenarios have impacted Hutsul ethnobotanical knowledge and its transmission patterns

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries

Las plantas medicinales en el inventario español sobre los conocimientos Tradicionales relativos al patrimonio natural y a la biodiversidad

En las últimas décadas las organizaciones internacionales han puesto de manifiesto la importancia de los conocimientos ecológicos tradicionales para la conservación y el uso sostenible de la diversidad biológica, como se refleja en el Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CBD 1992). En España, el marco jurídico que recoge las normas y recomendaciones de esta estrategia es la Ley de Patrimonio Natural y Biodiveresidad 42/2007 que establece la creación del Inventario Español de Conocimientos Tradicionales (IECT) relevantes para la conservación y el uso sostenible de la biodiversidad y geodiversidad. Desde hace más de un año un equipo de más de 60 investigadores, incluyendo botánicos, zoólogos, antropólogos, ecólogos y geólogos de más de 20 centros de investigación y universidades del estado español, están trabajando en el IEDT, con el objetivo de recopilar y difundir la información publicada sobre los conocimientos tradicionales relativos a la flora, fauna, geodiversidad y el manejo de los ecosistemas

Sustainability of traditional ecological knowledge: importance, distribution, endemicity and conservation of Spanish medicinal plants

Trabajo presentado en la 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany (Living in a global world: local knowledge ans sustainability), celebrada en Braganza (Portugal) del 4 al 9 de junio de 2017.-- IECTB authors: L Aceituno, R Acosta, A Alvarez, E Barroso, J Blanco, MA Bonet, L Calvet, E Carrio, R Cavero, U DAmbrosio , L Delgado, J Fajardo, I Fernandez-Ordonez, J Garcia, T Garnatje, JA Gonzalez, R Gonzalez-Tejero, A Gras, E Hernandez-Bermejo, E Laguna, JA Latorre, C. Lopez, MJ Macia, E Marcos, V Martinez, G Menendez, M Molina, R Morales, LM Munoz, C Obon, R Ontillera, M Parada, A Perdomo, I Perez, MP Puchades, V Reyes-Garcia, M Rigat, S Rios, D Rivera, R Rodriguez, O Rodriguez, R Roldan, L San Joaquin, FJ Tardio, JR Vallejo, J Valles, H Velasco and A Verde.More than 17,000 of the plant species of the world have been used as medicines. The Mediterranean basin, and specifically Spain, has a great floristic and ethnobotanical richness, comprising its useful flora around 3,000 plant species. This paper studies medicinal plants traditionally used in Spain in order to analyze the sustainability of their exploitation. Given that sustainability is related to the amount of the resource and its gathering pressure, its availability and cultural importance were analysed based on: the number of papers cited from a selection of over 180 papers, the number of 10x10 km UTM grid cells in which the plants were represented, the number of phytosociological inventories in which the presence of the plant has been registered, and searched on their current conservation status in European, national and regional legislations. The total number of wild or naturalized medicinal species in Spain reaches 1,393, 15% of them being endemic. A positive correlation was found among cultural importance and abundance (ρ=0.48) and among cultural importance and distribution (ρ=0.502), showing that abundant widely distributed species are those more commonly used. Most of the medicinal plants (72%) do not appear on the consulted regulations and do not have any legal protection or known threat and only 11 species are registered in any of the annexes of the European Habitats directive. While this study confirms that people tend to select as medicinal abundant and widely distributed species, many other criteria are used for selecting them.Peer reviewe

The value of the continuous genotyping of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis over 20 years in Spain

Molecular epidemiology of circulating clinical isolates is crucial to improve prevention strategies. The Spanish Working Group on multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a network that monitors the MDR-TB isolates in Spain since 1998. The aim of this study was to present the study of the MDR-TB and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) patterns in Spain using the different recommended genotyping methods over time by a national coordinated system. Based on the proposed genotyping methods in the European Union until 2018, the preservation of one method, MIRU-VNTR, applied to selected clustered strains permitted to maintain our study open for 20 years. The distribution of demographic, clinical and epidemiological characteristics of clustered and non-clustered cases of MDR/XDR tuberculosis with proportion differences as assessed by Pearson’s chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test was compared. The differences in the quantitative variables using the Student's-t test and the Mann–Whitney U test were evaluated. The results obtained showed a total of 48.4% of the cases grouped in 77 clusters. Younger age groups, having a known TB case contact (10.2% vs 4.7%) and XDR-TB (16.5% vs 1.8%) were significantly associated with clustering. The largest cluster corresponded to a Mycobacterium bovis strain mainly spread during the nineties. A total of 68.4% of the clusters detected were distributed among the different Spanish regions and six clusters involving 104 cases were grouped in 17 and 18 years. Comparison of the genotypes obtained with those European genotypes included in The European Surveillance System (TESSy) showed that 87 cases had become part of 20 European clusters. The continuity of MDR strain genotyping in time has offered a widespread picture of the situation that allows better management of this public health problem. It also shows the advantage of maintaining one genotyping method over time, which allowed the comparison between ancient, present and future samples