Local Knowledge of Plants and Their Uses Among Women in the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia

Women’s local ecological knowledge (LEK) is noted by many scholars to be unique and important for local conservation and development planning. Although LEK integration is inherent to ethnobotanical research, in Ethiopia, the knowledge-gender link has not been fully explored, and few studies focus on women’s distinct plant knowledge. We catalogued rural women’s knowledge of a wide range of plant uses in south-central Ethiopia, conducted through picture identification of 337 local plants. Fifty-seven plant species were identified, constituting 38 families, with the top five families being Lamiaceae, Solanaceae, Asteraceae, Rosaceae, and Pteridaceae. An array of uses were identified ranging from food, livestock and wildlife forage, to honey production and cosmetics. The most prevalent use noted (nearly 70%) was human medicine. This study reveals the important contribution of rural women’s plant knowledge in the Bale Mountains, and the potential benefits of including this gender-distinct understanding of local flora in community-based conservation planning

Plant use in Odo-Bulu and Demaro, Bale region, Ethiopia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>This paper reports on the plant use of laypeople of the Oromo in Southern Ethiopia. The Oromo in Bale had names/uses for 294 species in comparison to 230 species documented in the lower reaches of the Bale area. Only 13 species was used for veterinary purposes, or as human medicine (46). Plant medicine served mostly to treat common everyday ailments such as stomach problems and diarrhea, for wound treatment and as toothbrush-sticks, as anthelmintic, for skin infections and to treat sore muscles and. Interestingly, 9 species were used to treat spiritual ailments and to expel demons. In most cases of medicinal applications the leaves or roots were employed.</p> <p>Traditional plant knowledge has clearly declined in a large part of the research area. Western style health care services as provided by governments and NGOs, in particular in rural areas, seem to have contributed to a decline in traditional knowledge, in part because the local population simply regards western medicine as more effective and safer.</p

Bale Mountains forest tree demography data

These data are in four separate files each representing one forest location (i.e., Adelle, Demaro, Odo bulu, and Rira). Each file has the basal area factor prism value (20) used to collect the data as well as the number of prism plots collected at each specific location. Each record represents an individual tree. The columns in each worksheet include Date, Plot #, Subplot, tree #, and species. Date provides the date the data were collected, Plot# list the plot name of the tree measured. Subplot is one of the five subplots associated with each plot representing C (center), N(North), W (West), S(South), and E(East). Tree # lists tree number specific to each subplot. Species lists the species name as a two letter code representing the first two letters of the scientific name (include genus and species - see below). Finally, dhb (cm) includes the diameter at breast height for each tree species in centimeters.Prism sampling data across the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. These data are collected from four different forests: Adelle, Rira, Odo-Bulu and Demaro.The National Science Foundation (#1313728), The Murulle Foundation, Center for Collaborative Conservation