Medicinal plant knowledge in rural communities of Northwestern Patagonia, A resilient prectice beyond acculturaltion

ANA LADIO; MARIANA LOZADA

Current Topics in Ethnobotany

Trivandrum

Año: 2008; p. 39 - 53

Medicinal wild plant use is an ancient practice amongst aboriginal inhabitants from north-western Patagonia. At present, this local knowledge is conspicuously decreasing due to acculturation processes associated with the deep transformations these rural and aboriginal populations are suffering. Medicinal plant knowledge forms part of a greater corpus of local knowledge known as Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). Several investigations have shown that TEK contributes to building resilience and enhancing a system’s ability to deal with change. The aim of the present investigation was to study medicinal plant use in a rural community of NW Patagonia, and reflect about how this ancient practice is linked to their capacity for resilience and well-being.  Our results showed that plant knowledge (63 spp. utilized for multiple applications and obtained from different ecological micro-habitats)  is an important internal resource for the Cuyin Manzano people, enabling them to deal competently with healing, i.e. healing themselves and helping to heal other family members.  In addition, the most important ailments, i.e., gastrointestinal problems and complaints requiring analgesic-anti-inflammatory treatment, are cured with a great variety of species. This selection pattern might show resilient and adaptive attributes of this traditional ecological knowledge, given that a greater number of useful plants are identified to tackle the most significant ailments, indicating thorough exploration of North-western Patagonian medicinal resources and their healing properties.