It is greatly revered and has been referred to as a ‘cultural keystone species’, which is one of exceptional cultural significance, inextricably linked with cultural practices, identity and environment.

As stated in the Declaration of Kaua’i (from an Ethnobotanical Summit held at the National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kaua’i in 2007): ‘Ethnobotany can strengthen our links to the natural world. It makes it possible for us to learn from the past and from the diverse approaches to plants represented by the different human cultures that exist today

Commercialization of plants and increasing global demand, particularly of wild-harvested medicinal species, can lead to overexploitation, putting plant populations at risk. It is estimated that between 60 to 90 per cent of all medicinal and aromatic plants currently in trade are harvested from the wild. Traditional sustainable harvesting practices

Economic and utilitarian models of the natural world that undermine Indigenous and holistic concepts and worldviews risk creating an asymmetrical relationship with nature, one that is exploitative rather than nurturing, and unilateral instead of reciprocal.

Colonizers and corporations have historically used intellectual property laws derived from Eurocentric conceptualization of property, ownership, knowledge and authorship to maximize their profits; patenting products developed through bioprospecting. In 2020, 6.2 per cent of plant species were associated with patents, including 7,595 patents in medi

‘plant blindness’ – the term given to the inherent cognitive bias that leads to people ignoring plants, not valuing them nor their importance to the biosphere and ranking them as inferior to animals. Plants are often viewed as inanimate objects rather than living beings. This objectification lends itself to domination and exploitation.

Recognizing more-than-human beings as our kin promotes a sense of familiarity and attachment, and a desire to care and nurture them. This view of kinship is not restricted to Indigenous peoples: scientists have hypothesized that all eukaryotic organisms (animals, fungi, plants and protists) share a common ancestor from about 2 billion years ago. Pl

Reciprocity is a basic tenet of many Indigenous peoples across the world, who see themselves in a reciprocal relationship with planet Earth and other living beings; existing within an extended complex kinship system that includes all the natural elements of an ecosystem. Understanding this relationship through a kincentric ecological basis helps to

Threatened languages are also associated with medicinal knowledge: in a regional study focusing on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, it was found that 75 per cent of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language. As Indigenous traditional knowledge is generally transmitted orally, when a language disappears, so does its embodied cultu