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Abstract

Introduction: Medicinal plants have always played a major role in primary health care system since time immemorial. Sacred natural sites is the prime place to encompass large medicinal plant with wide range of natural resources. It potentially conserves plant biodiversity with inclusion of sacred places and sacred water bodies. Apart from social and religious importance it, regulate air and water quality of environment. The purpose of this study was to document the floristic diversity and traditional approaches towards the ethnomedicinal plants of Sacred Natural Sites of Panchkoshi Pilgrimage of Varanasi district, Uttar Pradesh India. Methods: An ethnobotanical survey was conducted from May 2016 to April 2018. The information collected through open-ended and semi-structured questionnaire and data were analyzed through Informant consensus factor (ICF). Results: During the field study, 66 medicinal plant species belonging to 62 genera and 36 families used to heal different illnesses were recorded. Fabaceae has the dominant family with 8 plant species and Apocynaceae and Moraceae with 5 plant species followed by Malvaceae, Poaceae, Solanaceae, and Lamiaceae. With regard to life form, trees (46.97%) were the primary source of medicinal plants and leaves (32.22%) were the regularly utilized plant part. Moreover, the mode of preparation of plant remedies was decoction (25.77%). The highest ICF value was recorded for muskulo-skeletal problem (0.96). Conclusions: This study helps in prioritizing to create awareness among the locals regarding the needs for conservation of plants and related indigenous knowledge. It would also expand and contribute green cover of expanding urbanized district of Varanasi.

Valuing Ecosystem Services of Sacred Natural Sites in the Anthropocene: A Case Study of Varanasi, India

“…However, SNS are primarily protected by communities for their spiritual or cultural value, but these sites may be additionally valued for social, economic, and ecological reasons including nature protection, biodiversity conservation and provision of a wide range of ecosystem services (MA 2005;Wild et al 2008;Gokhale and Pala 2011;Rutte 2011). These sites provide an array of ecosystem goods and services (MA 2005) such as herbal medicines (Patel et al 2020), firewood (Yuan and Liu 2009), fruits, fodder, drinking and irrigation water (Gokhale and Pala 2011), soil erosion regulation (Yuan and Liu 2009), protection from natural hazards, groundwater recharge (Dorm-Adzobu et al 1991), carbon sequestration (Devi et al 2021), air purification, water purification (Bhagwat 2009;Jackson and Ormsby 2017), nutrient cycling (Gokhale and Pala 2011), social relations, cultural heritage, inspiration (Plieninger et al 2020), historical value (Jackson and Ormsby 2017), spiritual and religious value (Fomin 2008;Yuan and Liu 2009;De Lacy and Shackleton 2017a), recreation and tourism (Bhagwat 2009), aesthetic value (De Lacy and Shackleton 2017a; Yuan and Liu 2009), educational value (Chandrakanth and Romm 1991), symbolic value (Yuan and Liu 2009), habitat and biodiversity conservation (Wassie et al 2010;Bharathi and Prasad 2017;De Lacy and Shackleton 2017b;Avtzis et al 2018;Gopal et al 2018), and livelihood provision (Wadley and Colfer 2004).…”