Ethnobotanical Study of Medicinal Plants in Burji Woreda, Southern Ethiopia

Hamer Hansha¹ , Daniel Fitamo² , Obsa Assefa³

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.6 , Issue.8 , pp.39-48, Aug-2020

Online published on Aug 31, 2020

Copyright © Hamer Hansha, Daniel Fitamo, Obsa Assefa . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
Like rural population of Ethiopia, the Burji people rely on traditional medicinal plants for treating human and livestock ailments. However, the medicinal plants and associated knowledge are threatened due to loss of vegetation. Thus, the present study was conducted to document the medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge used by the traditional healers to treat various ailments afflicting humans and livestock. Of 100 Informants, the 29 key informants were purposively selected while the 71 general informants were decided randomly from households. Ethnobotanical data were collected using semi-structured interview, focus group discussion and field observation. Data gathered were analyzed using descriptive statistics, preference ranking, and paired comparison. 81 medicinal plants (46 Ethnomedicinal, 26 Ethnoveterinary, and 9 for both) that are distributed across 40 families and 77 genera were documented. Fabaceae was the dominant medicinal plant family reported. Virtually half (49.4%) of medicinal plants were collected from wild while the remaining were harvested from cultivated areas (45.7%) and from both wild and cultivated areas (4.9%). Herbs constituted (38.3%) and leaves were the predominant plant part (33.6%) used to prepare remedies. Powdering (35.48%) followed by grinding and crushing (30.65%) were the common preparation methods while (63.1%) route of administration was oral. The highest informant consensus factor values were observed for Malaria and Headache (0.89), and Trypanosomiasis (0.88). Moringa stenopetala is considered as the most effective medicinal plants against Malaria whereas Dalbergia lactea is the most favored plant to treat Trypanosomiasis. Agricultural expansion, drought and overgrazing were the major threats to medicinal plants and the efforts of local people in conserving medicinal plants of the study area were very limited. In order to maintain the time-honored knowledge on the use, management and conservation of medicinal plants, instituting protected areas with community-based conservation and promoting the cultivation of multipurpose medicinal plants in home gardens are required

Key-Words / Index Term :
Burji Woreda, Indigenous Knowledge, Medicinal Plants

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