Preditores da percepção local sobre o estado de conservação das plantas medicinais: estudo de caso em uma comunidade rural na cidade de Traipu (AL)

Abstract

Many people depend on medicinal plants, which are used as a health care and disease cure strategy, especially in developing countries. Therefore, studies have sought to understand the pressures arising from medicinal use and its implications for the conservation of species. However, many of these studies have not taken into account other uses to which species of medicinal plants may be subject. This may have resulted in mistaken conclusions about the real contribution of medicinal use to the decline of a population. This study aims to understand the general trends related to the association between categories of use and the perceived decline of medicinal plants, outcropped in the ecosystem of the Caatinga, semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil. The field research was conducted in the Japão community, located in the rural area of the city of Traipú, Alagoas. Semi-structured interviews were carried out through the application of the free-list technique, to register the used and known medicinal plants by the community. Among the mentioned plants, the native and woody plants were selected to assess the perception of decline in a participatory workshop. The data were analyzed by the Spearman rank correlation to point out the relationships among the categories of use and the perception of decline. The results demonstrated that fuel and construction categories were related to the perception of species decline and also related to each other. Medical use was related to veterinary use, nevertheless, these uses were not connected with the perception of decline. These findings suggest that the strategies for conserving medicinal plants may not neglect associated uses, especially the timber uses.