Medicinal use of fauna by a traditional community in the Brazilian Amazonia.

Flávio B Barros,Luís Vicente,Henrique M Pereira,Susana A M Varela

doi:10.1186/1746-4269-8-37

Flávio B Barros, Luís Vicente + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-8-37

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Abstract

BackgroundZootherapy inventories are important as they contribute to the world documentation of the prevalence, importance and diversity of the medicinal use of animals in traditional human communities. The present study aims to contribute with a more valuable example of the zootherapy practices of a traditional community in the Brazilian Amazonia – the “Riozinho do Anfrísio” Extractive Reserve, in Northern Brazil.MethodsWe used the methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, applied to 25 informants. We employed the combined properties of two indices to measure the medicinal importance of each cited species to the studied community, as well as their versatility in the treatment of diseases: the well known Use Value (UV) and the Medicinal Applications Value (MAV) that we developed.ResultsWe recorded 31 species of medicinal animals from six taxonomic categories, seven of which are new to science. The species are used for the treatment of 28 diseases and one species is used as an amulet against snakebites. The five species with the highest UV indices are the most popular and valued by the studied community. Their contrasting MAV indices indicate that they have different therapeutic properties: specific (used for the treatment of few diseases; low versatility) and all-purpose (several diseases; high versatility). Similarly, the most cited diseases were also those that could be treated with a larger number of animal species. Ten species are listed in the CITES appendices and 21 are present in the IUCN Red List. The knowledge about the medicinal use of the local fauna is distributed evenly among the different age groups of the informants.ConclusionsThis study shows that the local fauna represents an important medicinal resource for the inhabitants of the protected area. The combined use of the UV and MAV indices allowed identifying the species with the highest therapeutic potential. This type of information about a species may be of interest to pharmacological research, and is crucial to its conservation, since it helps signaling the species that may undergo higher hunting pressures. Data on zootherapy can also be of interesting to ecologists by contributing to indicators of local biodiversity richness.

Highlights

Zootherapy inventories are important as they contribute to the world documentation of the prevalence, importance and diversity of the medicinal use of animals in traditional human communities
To measure the degree of medicinal importance of each species cited by the informants, we employed two indices: i. the index of “Use Value” (UV) [34,35,36] that takes into account the number of informants citing each species for medicinal purposes; and ii. the index of “Medicinal Applications Value” (MAV) that we developed and that takes into account the number of use-categories of diseases and other health problems cited by the informants for each species
The medicinal fauna at the “Riozinho do Anfrísio” Extractive Reserve We identified 31 animal species that are used for medicinal purposes by the “Riozinho do Anfrísio” riverine community

Summary

Introduction

Zootherapy inventories are important as they contribute to the world documentation of the prevalence, importance and diversity of the medicinal use of animals in traditional human communities. One classic example is the use and wide commercialization of the body parts of species such as the bear, the tiger and the Asian rhinoceros in traditional Chinese medicine [4]. In this context, ethnobiological studies on the zootherapy practices of traditional communities around the world are of the most relevance, as they help establishing a global information bank of the animal species most used in traditional medicine, highlighting their ecological and cultural value, and the species that may undergo higher pressures [6]

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