Ethno-veterinary knowledge and practices amongst Indigenous pastoralists in the Menoua division, west region of Cameroon

Abstract

The present study entitled “Ethno-veterinary knowledge and practices amongst indigenous pastoralists in the Menoua division, West region of Cameroon” was conducted from January to June 2019. It was aimed at assessing and analyzing more specifically; pastoralists’ perceptions regarding ethno-veterinary practices, major ethno-veterinary practices in the study area, major challenges faced by pastoralists in the field of ethno-veterinary, and pastoralists’ conservation measures for proper management of these knowledge/practices. A descriptive method of statistics was employed where survey questionnaires, FGDs, and field observations were used for data collection. A sample size of 200 respondents was targeted through both purposive and stratified sampling methods. The major findings indicate that, there is disease prevalence in the study area with over 93.0% of responses. A large majority of respondents (62.0%) use both ethno-veterinary and modern means of treatments while over 26.5% depends only on ethno-veterinary medicines. Pastoralists in the study area proved to have positive attitude and concern for ethno-veterinary medicines and over 58.0% of them judged it to be ‘very effective and fruitful’. Documentation of major ethno-veterinary practices was realized for the following cattle diseases plaguing the study area; Brucellosis, FMD, Cowdriosis, Streptothricosis, Babesiosis, Diarrhoea, Ringworm, Infertility, Epheral fever, Bloat, Wound, Poisoning, Fracture, Lumpy skin, Lice, Ticks, and Flies. The major challenges encountered by pastoralists in ethno-veterinary practices were; difficulties in obtaining medicinal plants due to recent physico-demographic challenges, difficulties in preparation and/or usage of dosage, and challenges in storage/preservation, accounting for 93.0%, 89.5% and 82.5% of responses respectively. Despite these challenges, pastoralists in the study area pass down ethno-veterinary knowledge/practices to the younger generation and some of them still conserve medicinal plants in home gardens as effective means to preserve and promote this very important resource pool necessary for man and his society. Nevertheless, according to the respondents, the most important workable solution for the preservation and promotion of ethno-veterinary practices include; documentation of the knowledge/practices, full integration of this system of medicine into the educational milieu, protection of areas containing ethno-medicinal plants, and the promotion of home gardening of medicinal plants.