Como as pessoas selecionam plantas medicinais em sistemas médicos locais?

Abstract

The importance of medicinal plants in a culture has been measured in terms of its popularity and versatility. The most popular plants are those known to most local people, while the most versatile plants have the most therapeutic indications. Previous ethnobotanical works have indicated clues about some factors that may influence the popularity of medicinal plants, such as availability, efficiency, palatability and taste attributes. Besides the popularity, one can expect that the versatility of medicinal plants is also explained by these factors. However, these factors have been approached in these studies as isolated explanatory models, which may influence the selection of medicinal plants, in some cases without considering local perception. In addition, most of these studies present anecdotal information. Thus, this study aimed to test whether the local perception of efficiency, availability, palatability and taste interfered with the popularity and versatility of medicinal plants. Therefore, this research was conducted in two rural communities, located within the Catimbau National Park, in the state of Pernambuco. The free-listing technique was used to identify the medicinal plants known and used in the communities. From this list, 20 ethnoespecies were drawn to the next stage. For the collection of information as a part used, therapeutic indications and the place of collection of these plants, as well as to obtain socioeconomic data about the informants, semi-structured interviews were conducted. Regarding the data about people's perception of the factors evaluated, the informants who participated in the first stage were invited to perform scoring exercises for the 20 drawn plants known and/or used by them. Multiple linear regression analyzes were used to assess whether the local perception of efficiency, palatability and availability together influenced the popularity and versatility of the species. We verified that in the studied context, none of the models kept all variables as explanatory for popularity and the versatility of medicinal plants. However, availability and efficiency acted together to explain the versatility in one community, while palatability was inversely related to popularity and versatility in another community. Therefore, this study evidenced that the variables that have been studied in an isolated way in the literature to evaluate the importance of medicinal plants can better explain this phenomenon when evaluated jointly, being the efficiency and the availability of stronger factors to explain the versatility. Additionally, it is concluded that relatively close communities may have distinct factors as guides of popularity and versatility, leading to the challenge of unveiling the driving forces of such differences.