What are the most significant challenges that ethnobiology and ethnomedicine have faced so far, and how were they dealt with?

作者：Rainer W. Bussmann, Narel Y. Paniagua-Zambrana, Emiel De Meyer · 发表于：Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s13002-025-00814-z · 被引用次数：2 · 研究领域：Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies、Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies、Empathy and Medical Education

Ethnobiology explores the complex, evolving relationships between humans and the natural world, encompassing diverse subfields such as ethnobotany, ethnozoology, ethnopharmacology, and more. This scientific field of research has undergone several developmental phases since its inception in the late nineteenth century, evolving from colonial-era documentation of useful species to contemporary collaborative and decolonized approaches that emphasize community participation and interdisciplinary research addressing global crises. All ethnobiological studies are valuable especially if they ultimately help to foster science and conservation and improve the livelihoods of the populations whose plants and knowledge are studied. Hypothesis driven studies just serving scientific ego are borderline neocolonial, as is the transfer of values, opinions, beliefs, analysis methods that we personally regard as true onto societies we work with, without first obtaining prior informed consent. Great care must be taken when interpreting the results of molecular data and statistical analyses (indices), and much more care needs to be taken distinguishing between "knowledge" and actual "use". And we must remember that the basis of any Ethnobiological studies is a solid botanical, zoological, and ecological knowledge, i.e., especially the correct taxonomic identification of plants and animal species. Given the emergence of sharing knowledge as part of "online information", it is important to safeguar...