THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUALS IN THE RESILIENCE OF LOCAL MEDICAL SYSTEMS BASED ON THE USE OF MEDICINAL PLANTS ? A HYPOTHESIS

WASHINGTON SOARES FERREIRA JÚNIOR; FLÁVIA ROSA SANTORO; ANDRÉ LUIS BORBA DO NASCIMENTO; ANA HAYDÉE LADIO; ULYSSES PAULINO DE ALBUQUERQUE

Ethnobiology and Conservation

Ethnobiology and Conservation

Año: 2013

2238-4782

Some studies in the field of ethnobiology investigate the knowledge and use of biologicalresources, especially medicinal plants, to infer the resilience of local medical systems.However, little is known about the resilience of such systems in the context of the distributionof knowledge among individuals in the studied communities. For example, although amedical system is formed by a diverse set of species, the distribution of knowledge may belimited to a small number of individuals, which reduces its flexibility and does not favor itsresilience. Thus, this manuscript proposes the hypothesis that the medical system appearsresilient when assessing the knowledge of the individuals who compose the system. Theknowledge of medicinal plants for the treatment of therapeutic targets among the individualsis used as an example. Additionally, predictions are made and a methodological protocol isdescribed to test the hypothesis by a simple analysis