Ethnobotanical Studies on the Use of Medicinal Plants among Forest Fringe Communities around the Kasewe Forest in Moyamba District, Southern Sierra Leone

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Forests are home to many flora and fauna species. Forest flora have been very important to man and sustainability of forest ecosystem. Forest flora provides provisional, regulatory, protective and cultural services. These services have been the foundation of civilization and development. Local communities depend on these natural resources for livelihood generation and cultural services. Local communities have been using medicinal plants to cure different ailments. In this study, an ethnobotanical survey was conducted to document medicinal plants diversity and use in forest fringe communities. The study adopted a method used by Martin in 1995 on Ethnobotanical reviews of medicinal plants. Ethnobotanical information was gathered through structured questionnaires administered to 57 inhabitants constituting key informants, community leaders, and household heads who are believed to have vast indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants. The snowball technique was used to identify respondents in communities around the Kasewe forest. For the diversity of medicinal plants use and associated indigenous knowledge, a plot of size 25 m × 25 m was demarcated with a linear tape and ranging poles in the different habitat types in the study area. Sampling was stratified based on the size of habitat types. A total of 10 sample plots comprising of 4 plots in the closed forest; 3 plots in disturbed areas, 2 plots in farmland, and 1 plot in the grassland were studied. A total of 3377 individual plant stems were documented comprising of 84 individual species belonging to 53 families and 78 genera. Of the 84 individual plant species, 42 were medicinal. The most dominant family was Malvaceae. Tree species were the most dominant life form representing 32.14% followed by shrubs 30.5, herbs 26.8% and climbers 10%. Majority of the plant species are of little conservation concern and few have been categorized as endangered and vulnerable that need special conservation attention. Species with the highest density was Chromolaena odorata 110 m2, while Xylopia quintais 0.1 m2 had the least density per hector. The Shannon-wiener index recorded 1.236 as the highest in plot 3 while plot 10 in the grassland was considered as the lowest with 0.757. The finding revealed that 92.98% of respondents around the Kasewe forest in the Moyamba district used medicinal plants to treat therapeutic ailments. At the same time, a very limited proportion depends on other medication sources to treat therapeutic ailments. 98.25% of the respondents, mostly older people, know medicinal plants to treat therapeutic ailments. All parts of the plant were indicated to be used for treatment of different ailments. However, the root (43.8%), bark (36.8%) and leaves (35%) are the most common plant parts used to treat different therapeutic ailments. 96.49% of the respondents have knowledge on administering prepared herbal medicine.