Diversity of plant knowledge in a "Caiçara" community from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest coast

Abstract

The number of publications about the Caiçaras population is growing, which shows that researchers are interested in these natives. This study aimed to survey the flora used by local specialists of the Praia do Sono Caiçara community, and recorded how these taxa were used, with the goal of understanding traditional management systems that help to conserve natural ecosystems. Twelve informants were selected and interviewed. The applied grouping analysis, together with the chi-squared test, underlined that the analysed ethnobotanical knowledge showed a heterogeneous distribution in relation to the gender of the interviewee. A total of 190 taxa were cited and were classified into nine usage categories. The Shannon-Wiener index (H') value obtained in this study was the second highest in comparison to other Brazilian coastal communities. This work showed that the local specialists of this Caiçara community maintain a wide knowledge of, and affinity to, the plant resources that surround them. This knowledge is not only important, but fundamental to discussions about the application of sustainable use and management strategies for this area of conservation value.

The Use of Herbal Medicine in a Rural Community in Vitória Da Conquista, Bahia, Brazil: An Indication for Pharmacological Studies

“…Most cited were those categories related to the digestive system (32.8%), followed by respiratory diseases (17%), general symptoms/signs of inflammation (14.5%), nervous system (13.3%) and circulatory system diseases (12.6%). Similar results were already found in other studies [20,24,33,34] indicating that the residents of São Sebastião use medicinal plants as the first line of treatment for most common diseases. …”

Áreas De Conservação, Pobreza E Desigualdade Social: Avaliação Utilizando Indicadores Socioeconômicos Em Minas Gerais, Brasil

“…It is important to recognize and draw attention to the fact that the HDI is a summary measurement; as such, it generalizes the different living conditions within each municipality and does not show how a smaller social group is affected by inhabiting the CA or its close surroundings. This is especially true regarding social groups that directly depend on biological resources for their survival, such as traditional populations (GIRALDI; HANAZAKI, 2010;BRITO;SENNA-VALLE, 2012).…”

“…Many populations depend on these resources for food, folk medicine, housing construction, and manufacturing of clothing and various tools (GIRALDI;HANAZAKA, 2010;BRITO;SENNA-VALLE, 2012).…”

Useful Brazilian plants under the view of the writer-naturalist João Guimarães Rosa

“…Table 2 also provides the reference for each book and page where the information was obtained. It also indicates the descriptions of the various categories of use (medicinal, food, construction, fuel, technology and ornamental), among other observations (Brito and Senna-Valle, 2012). We checked the relevance of each plant as medicinal by their citation in (1) monographs from the 1st edition of the Brazilian Pharmacopoeia (Brandão et al, 2009) and (2) information on the use of plants for the preparation of commercial products by Pharmaceutical Laboratories from Minas Gerais (Brandão et al, 2010).…”