Question

You are an ethnobotanist conducting a study with the Yagua Indians of the north Peruvian Amazon. After working with your study communities for a year, you have documented the medicinal use of more than 200 plant species and have both collected vouchers and taken copious notes on how the plants are prepared and used. Unfortunately, you have also noted some threats to the persistence of both the medicinal plant traditions and the ecosystem itself:
•    Of the communities studied (total population: 900 people), only 6 elderly people had extensive knowledge of medicinal plants in the area and the younger generations knew of the uses of the 10 most popular medicinals.
•    There are signs of loggers cutting down forests just 50 miles south of the traditional Yagua land. If the loggers continue north, they will encroach on the Yagua traditional hunting grounds and sacred forest sites, where many of the medicinal plants are collected.
•    The Peruvian government has installed a small health post in a neighboring village and many people are abandoning the use of traditional remedies in favor of the medicines provided at the health post.
•    One of the most popular medicinal plants still used by the Yagua is also being collected for sale to passing river barges that take it to market in the city. Over collection of the plant is threatening its survival in the region.

In order to promote the protection of both the traditional ecological knowledge and plants of this region, you need to design a conservation action plan to present to the Yagua council of elders. In your action plan, you need to present detailed strategies that will help them to conserve their traditions and plants, addressing the four issues listed above. Explain both your role and their role in these conservation efforts. Use examples from your reading and video assignments to back up your argument.

Grading rubric
•    Present solution for each issue (4 points)
•    Overall rationale and feasibility of your action plan (3 points)
•    Use of examples from your reading and video assignments to strengthen your argument (3 points)

Answer 1

Solution for Each Issue :

1. Six elderly people who had extensive knowledge of medicinal plants should educate the whole community by dividing the number of people among themselves. They should educate the youngsters that from where the popular medicinals come and how these medicinals extracted and processed.
2. The community should unite and put their best efforts to stop the loggers from heading north towards the traditional grounds and sacred forests. They should give a memorandum to the government about the cutting of sacred forests and their importance.
3. This problem can be solved only by educating the people about effectiveness of traditional remedies and the side effects of synthetic medicines provided at health post. If people undertand this then popularity of health post will be automatically decreased.
4. The people of community should take the charge of this popular medicinal plants and the six elderly people who had knowledge of these medicinal plants should tell the community about its importance. They should give a memorandum to government to ban the sale of this popular medicinal plant and the sale is done only by authorized people.

Overall rationale and fesibility of action plan :

First of all well educated and experienced people of community should be briefed about the plan to make teams to educate the people about importance of these precious plants and after that with the help of people government should be approached. People of community should also do whatever is possible to conserve the natural resources.