Abstract
Traditional knowledge on plant has a long-standing history in many indigenous communities, and continues to provide useful tools for treating various diseases. Tribal communities living in biodiversity rich areas possess a wealth of knowledge on the utilization and conservation of food and medicinal plants. They are well versed in the usage of plant for treating various diseases. The present study carryout by survey method aimed to identifying the plants used for the general health of the tribal communities such as Kadar, Muthuvar and Malai Malasars of Western Ghats region. Ethno medicinal information was gathered throughquestionnaire from the majority of tribal people of Valparai hills Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. All the traditional and other knowledge related to the collection and consumption of the medicinal plants, their environment on which communities depends was documented. The present study observed that, the tribal peoples from valparai having knowledge of 29 species on the traditional medicine. These tribes are one of the major conservators of environments. Their traditional knowledge can be utilized for the breeding technology of variety of threatened species and develop for the biodiversity conservation as well as for pharmacological research in various dimensions.
Highlights
India is proud to be rich in biodiversity possess about 8% of the estimated biodiversity of the world with around 12600 species
Tribal communities living in biodiversity rich areas possess a wealth of knowledge on the utilization and conservation of food and medicinal plants
It’s rich in ethnic diversity, there are about 67.37 million tribal people belonging to 537 tribal groups living in different geographical locations with various subsistence patterns (Amuthavalluvan 2011, Shanmugam et al, 2012).These tribal groups living in diversity rich areas possess a wealth of knowledge and skills on the utilization and conservation of food and medicinal plants
Summary
India is proud to be rich in biodiversity possess about 8% of the estimated biodiversity of the world with around 12600 species. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2005) has estimated that 80% of the populations of developing countries still rely on traditional medicines, mostly plant drugs, for their primary health care needs. It is estimated that tribal people of Tamil Nadu occupy 1.05% of the total state population and 0.77% of the total tribal population of the country. In India, medicinal plants are widely used by all sections of the population with an estimated 7500 species of plants used by several ethnic communities and it is known that India has the second largest tribal population in the world after Africa (Kala 2005). Tribal communities in India still collect and preserve locally available wild and cultivated plant species and practice herbal medicine to treat a variety of diseases and disorders (Mahishi et al.,2005)
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