Abstract
BackgroundOne of the main obstacles for the mainstreaming of religious traditions as tools for the conservation of nature is the limited applicability of research results in this field. We documented two different restrictions implemented by local people (taboos and sacrifices) related to the use of ritual plants in Benin (West Africa) and Gabon (Central Africa).MethodsTo see whether these restrictions reflected plant scarcity from an etic perspective (official threat status) and an emic viewpoint (perceived scarcity by local people), we conducted 102 interviews with traditional healers and adepts of traditional faiths.ResultsWe documented a total of 618 ritual plants, from which 52 species were used in both countries. In Benin, the use of 63 of the 414 ritual plant species was restricted; while in Gabon 23 of the 256 ritual plants were associated with taboos and sacrifices. In Benin, restricted plants were significantly more often officially threatened, perceived as scarce, and actively protected than non-restricted plants. In the more forested and less densely populated Gabon, plants that were perceived as scarce were more often associated to local restrictions than officially threatened species.ConclusionsThese results prove the presence of a form of adaptive management where restrictions are related to resource scarcity and protection of ritual plant species. By providing baseline data on possibly endangered species, we demonstrate how plant use in the context of religious traditions can yield important information for conservation planning.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1746-4269-11-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
One of the main obstacles for the mainstreaming of religious traditions as tools for the conservation of nature is the limited applicability of research results in this field
One of the main obstacles in the mainstreaming of practices associated with religious traditions as tools for the conservation of biodiversity is the insufficient applicability of research results in this field
We focused on adepts of different traditional faiths and traditional health practitioners in Benin (West Africa) and Gabon (Central Africa) in order to identify ritual plant species
Summary
One of the main obstacles for the mainstreaming of religious traditions as tools for the conservation of nature is the limited applicability of research results in this field. At the policy level, the integration of these data into conservation planning and implementation remains rather limited, like for example, the almost exclusive attention that sacred natural sites have received as de-facto protected areas This is a laudable achievement, cultural values (which include religious traditions) encompass a wider range of social. Taboos have been found to exist as a means of avoidance of potential health hazards [10,11,12,13], or associated with signs of spiritual purity [14] They have been viewed as mechanisms for the partitioning of resources, either with the purpose of monopolizing [15] or conserving them [10,16,17,18]. Only a few of these studies are supported by quantitative analysis based on interviews with local informants [12]
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