Ethnomedicinal knowledge and utilization of the medicinal plant resources by the tribal people of the Jhargram District, West Bengal, India

Abstract

The study strives to investigate and document the traditional ethnomedicinal knowledge of indigenous plant species used by the tribal people of Jhargram district, West Bengal, India. It has been stated by the 142 informants that, out of a total of 80 plant species, 45 classes, 46 orders, 46 families and 75 genera are generally used as medicinal plants to cure several diseases. The most dominant medicinal plant families found in this region are Fabaceae, Apocynaceae, Anacardiaceae, Lamiaceae, Acanthaceae and Malvaceae. The most important species based on use value (UV) are Azadirachta excelsa, Cissus quadrangularis, Tylophora indica and Ocimum tenuiflorum. The informant consensus factor (F_ic) values range from 0.46 to 0.71. The fidelity level (FL) value in the present study ranges from 25.58% to 93.42%. The study makes it clear that the aged informants have contributed more to the information about the value of the ethnomedicinal plants. Less information from the younger generation proves significant erosion of the traditional knowledge of this precious store. Some ethnomedicinal species with high UV and FL need to be reassessed for their phytochemical and pharmacological importance.

Keywords:

• Ethnomedicinal knowledge
• traditional ecological knowledge
• traditional healers
• informant consensus factor
• use value

Acknowledgments

The authors of the article express their sincere gratitude to the tribal people of Jhargram forest for their assistance in providing data and also to those who participated in the study by sharing their knowledge, hospitality and assistance in fieldwork. All authors contributed to the conception of the research design and data collection under the supervision of Dr. Ghiyasuddin Siddique, Professor, Department of Geography, The University of Burdwan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Mr. Krishna Pada Sahoo and all authors commented on earlier versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Nomenclature

UV - use value; Usi - the total number of uses for a species that people have indicated; UVis - is the use value of a species for an informant; Fic - informant consensus factor; Nur - the number of uses for each disease category; Nt - the number of species used for each disease category to determine the F_ic; STs - scheduled tribes; FL - fidelity level; Iμ - the overall number of informants mentioning the plant for any disease category; Ip - the number of informants reporting the use of the plant for a specific disease category; ENT - ear-nose-throat; TEK - traditional ecological knowledge; r - Spearman’s rank correlation; km2 - square kilometer; OLI - operational land imager; IA - Indian Ayurveda; AUM - Arabic Unani Medicine; TCA - Traditional Chinese Ayurveda

Author contributions

Krishna Pada Sahoo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Data Collection, Data Analysis, Writing – original draft, Visualization. Giyasuddin Siddique: Supervision, Data Collection, Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing - review & editing. Arindam Roy: Validation, Visualization, Editing. Subhendu Ghosh: Data curation, Tabulation, Editing. Mehedi Hasan Mandal: Visualization, Writing – editing.

Ethics approval

The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 (Act of the Indian Parliament enacted for the protection of flora and fauna) has been followed while collecting data on indigenous plant species in forests inhabited by tribal ecological landscapes in Jhargram District, West Bengal.

Consent form

Interviewees were informed of the research objectives and full informed consent was obtained from all the individual participants involved in the study. Relevant institutional ethics followed the protocol, and personal information was considered confidential.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The datasets of this study are available from the corresponding author through questionnaires of the informants from the field survey at reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

No financial aid from any persons/organizations has been received by any of the authors for the present study.