The plant having medicinal properties and are used for the extraction of medicine are called medicinal plants. The medicinal plants are the principal source of the raw drugs. Ethnobotany is the study of ethnic plants of particular people living in particular place. It shows the relationship of a given society with its environment and with the plant world. It accommodates list, details and description of all those studied plants regarding with their various uses. Most of the people living in the rural areas still depend on the traditional treatments methods by using medicinal plants and herbs. These medicinal plants are also an important source of income as their sale contributes to the economic development of rural communities and also support modern industrial development.

Documentation refers to an approach of preserving raw knowledge in complete state for posterity and dissemination. Factors affecting the passage of the indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants to the next generation are knowledge holder, recipient (Interested), Situation and Plants. If any of this are missing in the current prevailing situation, no knowledge can be passed and hence, this type of knowledge will vanish. By documentation, this knowledge will in preserved in the form of data or record which can be fully utilized by people even if anyone important factors affecting transfer of the knowledge. The negligence of the young generation is the main reason hindering the flow of this knowledge. Further, oral documentation is most prevailing way of documentation which is not permanent and may get apparent after certain generation. Hence there is a dire urgency for proper documenting this ethnobotanical knowledge.

In developing countries like Nepal, most important sources and methods of health treatment is the traditional system of medicine and the indigenous medicinal plant species. The use of plants as medicine is slowly increasing in the developed world because they have very little or no side effect. The traditional use of plants by indigenous communities reflects the cultural aspects as well as biodynamic elements that have immense pharmacological potential to cure many diseases.

Indigenous cultures are a huge storage of traditional and indigenous knowledge regarding herbal remedies for the treatment of various disease, but this knowledge are still not documented. In order to speed up the discovery of new drugs and other possible application of these plants, it is important to record and preserve the traditional knowledge. Most interesting ethnobotanical data can be generally collected in ethnic communities where Traditional Ethnobotanical knowledge remains often under documented without a proper documentation. In such a situation, the interaction between the indigenous people and the environment is the must in order to protect this knowledge from vanishing. The documentation of this knowledge definitely preserves the indigenous culture, identifies threatened species and contributes in conservation of the plant diversity. And this diversity will provide immense opportunities for ethnobotanical studies.

Documenting indigenous knowledge through the ethnobotanical approach is important for species conservation and sustainable resource use. The documentation preserves the vital knowledge about the use of medicinal plants. It helps to conserve, identify and use of the plants, focusing primarily on how plants are used, managed and perceived across human societies of different ethnic groups. If this knowledge is not documented properly, it might extinct from ethnic group. Thus, it is necessary to acquire and preserve the indigenous knowledge by documenting it properly.

 References:

Chaudhary, S., Magar, G. T., Sah, S. N., & Parajuli, S. (2020). Ethnic Plants of Tharu Community of Eastern Nepal. International Journal of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, 8(2), 223–230. https://doi.org/10.3126/ijasbt.v8i2.28325

Ahmad, L., Semotiuk, A., Zafar, M., Ahmad, M., Sultana, S., Liu, Q. R., Zada, M. P., Abidin, S. Z. U., & Yaseen, G. (2015). Ethnopharmacological documentation of medicinal plants used for hypertension among the local communities of DIR Lower, Pakistan. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 175, 138–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2015.09.014

Ambu, G., Chaudhary, R. P., Mariotti, M., & Cornara, L. (2020). Traditional Uses of Medicinal Plants by Ethnic People in the Kavrepalanchok District, Central Nepal Gabriele. Plants, 9, 1–34. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants9060759