TOWARDS COMMUNITY BASED

CONSERVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS IN

WESTERN GHATS – A CASE STUDY OF

IRULA COMMUNITY IN SIGUR PLATEAU
• Aim :
The identification of conservation status of
medicinal plant species in the tribal
settlements and to assess the threats to
the selected species.
 Objectives :
 To identify the conservation status of the medicinal plant
species in selected tribal settlement.

 To assess the threats for the selected medicinal plant

species.

 To evaluate the community based conservation efforts

for medicinal plants in the study area.

 To perform the SWOT analysis for working towards

sustainable harvesting in the region.
Methodology:
Stratified Random Sampling was used to
select the knowledgeable individuals.

In Age wise sampling the population was

divided into three groups 10 – 20, 20 – 30
and > 35.
1. Participatory mapping of medicinal plants habitats.
2. Documentation of medicinal plants and their uses.
3. Assessment of threats.
4. Analysis of species abundance and rarity.
5. Special emphasis given to specific plant species with very
high medicinal value as well as rarity.
6. Historical trend diagram for the medicinal plants.
7. Documentation and ranking of tribal diseases.
8. Assessing the IUCN status of the region for the conservation
of medicinal plants.
ANALYSIS:

 Ethno ecological Importance Index (EIV) -This new tool was used to combine cultural
data with ecological data in order to assign a cultural value to vegetation types as
sources of useful medicinal plants.
EIV = ∑^N x=1 (S) (nx/Nx)
Where
• EIV = Ethno ecological importance value for a particular habitat.
• S = Salience of species x (calculated by Smith’s S) (Smith 1993, Smith &
Borgatti 1997).
• N = The total number of species found in the study.
• x = The individual species found in the study.
• Nx = The sum of individuals of species x found in all habitats under study.
• nx = The total number of individuals of species x found in one habitat.
• Thus, the EIV of a habitat is the sum of the ethno ecological importance of
each useful species contained within it. The ethno ecological importance of
each species is the product of the species cultural salience (S) times its
relative abundance (nx/Nx).
 Consensus factor:
A consensus factor (Fic) for testing homogeneity of informant's knowledge
followed methods of Trotter and Logan. A consensus factor of Fic is given
by:

 The factor provides a range of 0 to 1, where a high value acts as a good

indicator for a high rate of informant consensus.

 Nur is the number of use-reports of informants for particular illness usage,(

where a use-report is a single record for use of a plant mentioned by an
individual,)

 Nt refers to the number of species used for a particular illness category for
all informants.
 The majority of illness types are grouped into predefined
ethno/economic botany categories , with the additions of
a few other illness categories that were commonly
mentioned during our interviews because they were
prevalent in these communities.

 The use of "general categories" is adopted here as

recommended by other ethno botanical researchers .
 Chi-square test :
To evaluate the average number of
medicinal plant species reported and used by
each informant in the villages, to determine if there
is any significant difference between female and
male practitioners with respect to the knowledge
and use of medicinal plants.
 To evaluate the status of medicinal plant
resources with respect to plant part collected for
medicinal purposes, plant form used and source of
collection.
The Spearman rank correlation:

This test was used to determine

whether there was a significant correlation
between the age of informants and the
number of medicinal plant species
reported and used by each informant.
 Transect mapping:
 Transect mapping is a tool used to describe the
location and distribution of resources, the
landscape and main land uses. It further allow
participants to identify constraints and
opportunities with specific reference to locations or
particular ecosystems situated along the transect.
 The tool involves outdoor activities, on-field
observation, discussions and diagramming. One
output is a transect map.
Free listing:
Successive free listing was used to
interview informants providing data for the
consensus analysis.
 SWOT analysis
 Estimation of harvesting rates.
 Analysis of harvesting methods of
medicinal plants and its impact on the
regeneration of medicinal plants.
 Grazing by cattle and its impacts on
medicinal plants near the edge areas of
the reserved forests.
 Conservation planning and strategies in
the tribal settlements.
 Shannon weiner index :
• The formula for calculating the Shannon
diversity index is

H´ = -∑ pi lnpi,

• Where pi, the proportional abundance of the ith

species = (ni / N).

• H´= Shannon wiener index.

• Pi= probability of occurrence

• Shannon wiener index takes into account the

evenness of the abundances of species.
 USE VALUE: used to assess the local
importance of each species.
The Use-Value was calculated using the formula
UV = ΣUi/n
(Rossato et al. 1999; Silva & Albuquerque 2004;
modified from Phillips and Gentry 1993a,
1993b),
where: Ui = the number of uses mentioned by
each informant for a given species,
n = the total number of informants.
• Ref : Evaluating Two Quantitative Ethno botanical Techniques
Ulysses P. Albuquerque, Reinaldo F. P. Lucena, Júlio M. Monteiro,
Alissandra T. N. Florentino and Cecília de Fátima C. B. R. Almeida