Traditional knowledge in semi-rural close to industrial areas: ethnobotanical studies in western Giron\xe8s (Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula)

Airy Gras,Ginesta Serrasolses,Teresa Garnatje,Joan Vallès

doi:10.1186/s13002-019-0295-2

Abstract

BackgroundThe western Gironès is a district located in NE Catalonia (NE Iberian Peninsula). This area comprising 186.55 km2 and 10,659 inhabitants is composed of 5 municipalities encompassing 29 villages, located in the hydrographic basins of the Ter and Llémena rivers.MethodsFollowing the methodology based on the semi-structured interviews, we carried out 40 interviews with 57 informants, 31 were women and the remaining 26 were men, with an average age of 78.6 years.ResultsIn the present study, data from 316 taxa (301 angiosperms, 8 gymnosperms, and 7 pteridophytes) belonging to 89 botanical families were collected. The interviewed informants referred 3776 UR of 298 taxa, 1933 (51.19%) of them corresponding to the food category, 949 (25.13%) to the medicinal ones, and 894 (23.68%) to other uses. In addition, 581 vernacular names for 306 species, subspecies, and varieties have also been collected.ConclusionsThese results reveal the validity of traditional knowledge in the studied area, which can be seriously threatened by the loss of its rural condition and its proximity to industrialized areas.

Highlights

The Catalan-speaking territories constitute a cultural unity that has attracted the interest of researchers from various disciplines
As defined by Harshberger [28], was conceived to study the plants used by a particular human group—not limited to any type of use— most studies have placed special interest in medicinal plants [29,30,31] and secondly in those used for food purposes [32,33,34,35,36]
This study contributes information to complete the ethnobotanical knowledge in the North Eastern Catalan linguistic and cultural area, where still a territory is to be investigated before being able to perform a meta-analytic work

Summary

Introduction

The Catalan-speaking territories constitute a cultural unity that has attracted the interest of researchers from various disciplines. The so-called acculturation process taking place in the industrialized areas, in other words the adoption of modern culture to the detriment of the traditional one [15], is the main cause of the loss of this knowledge, which must be available for future generations. The studies comprising the whole ethnobotanical knowledge of an industrialized area are less frequent This situation is explained, according to Gras et al [37], due to the fact that medicinal and food uses are most related to human health, which is still valid despite the above-mentioned acculturation process. This area comprising 186.55 km and 10,659 inhabitants is composed of 5 municipalities encompassing 29 villages, located in the hydrographic basins of the Ter and Llémena rivers

Objectives

Methods

Results