Indigenous knowledge and utilization of wild Mushrooms in communities around Kibira and Bururi mountain forests in Burundi

Abstract

Wild mushrooms are of paramount importance to human beings as a source of food, income and medicinal applications. However, the ethnomycological knowledge has not been well documented in Burundi and the potential benefits of this knowledge in medicine and sociocultural fields have not been explored. This study explored and documented the indigenous knowledge of wild edible mushrooms from the communities living around the Kibira and Bururi mountain forests in Burundi for the first time. Field surveys were conducted in the communities living around the Kibira National Park and the Bururi Forest Nature Reserve to document the local knowledge and the use of wild mushrooms. The interviews involved randomly picked 160 respondents of which, 99.4% of interviewees affirmed knowing mushrooms and 97.5% already utilized mushrooms. Among these, 69.4% utilized them as food. They recognize mushrooms as an alternative source of income (21.9%) and their medicinal applications (6.2%). The knowledge of mushroom edibility is transferred from parents to children by oral inheritance. That method has a negative impact on the traditional dissemination of this knowledge in the future due to some beliefs and conservative eating habits that induce a certain fear of mushrooms known as mycophobia, leading to the rejection of several mushroom species despite belonging to recognized edible taxa. A traditional method referred to as "Gusabura" was reported for eliminating toxic compounds in mildly toxic mushrooms prior to their consumption. The ethnomycological knowledge in Burundi is at risk of disappearing. Hence, there is a need to preserve this valuable indigenous knowledge by properly documenting it and introducing it in the lower level of the education system.