Side Event – Invited Speakers

Contributions

Myths of the pristine – from “natural” vegetation to “ancestral” knowledge of edible plants

Rainer W. Bussmann

State Museum for Natural History Karlsruhe, Department of Botany, Erbprinzenstrasse 13, 76133 Karlsruhe, Germany; email: Rainer.Bussmann@smnk.de

AND

Ilia State University, Institute of Botany and Bakuriani Alpine Botanical Garden, Department of Ethnobotany, Tbilisi, Georgia; email: Rainer.Bussmann@iliauni.edu.ge

Over the last decade, vegetation science has made great strides classifying the worlds’ vegetation communities. Simultaneously, aspects of the use of vegetation or individual plant species, as well as the impact of global change on vegetation distribution, migration of species, and livelihoods of communities around the globe have become important focal points. The ecology of edible species, in particular as sources for potential future food plants, have become fashionable study subjects, even more so since the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the vegetation side, much focus has been seen on finding and describing “natural” vegetation units around the globe, often without any reference to the historic context of anthropogenic impact, leading to a plethora of publications highlighting the “pristine” character e.g. of tropical forests or alpine and subalpine communities.

On the ethnobotanical side research has often moved from simple species inventories to detailed quantitative studies, genomics, and the elucidation of active compounds.

These developments, while highly important have also led to some disadvantages. On the one hand, the focus on “modern” studies has led to a decline of knowledge on, and publications of classic taxonomic studies, and field studies, and often neglect of classic herbaria. On the other hand, the very widespread use of statistical indices both in ecology and e.g., ethnobotanical field research has led to a virtual inflation of index use, with the application of often only one index, and wrongly extrapolating on plant importance from this, or applying multiple indices, but coming to wrong conclusions, especially with regard to conservation implications or the “usefulness of plants for further development.”

In this talk, we assess the myths of pristinity both with regard to vegetation units, as well as ancestral / traditional knowledge with regard to edible plant species and their possible use in the context of  food security.

Where does wild food come from?

Łukasz Łuczaj

Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Rzeszów, Poland; email: lukasz.luczaj@interia.pl

In my lecture I would like to make a journey through time and space to look at the habitats and plant communities which host edible plants. First I will talk about hunter-gatherers and their ways and strategies of obtaining wild food plants. Hunter-gatherers were very focused on obtaining energy-rich foods. It seems that underground storage organs (bulbs, tubers) were particularly highly prized. In the tropical forest these were mainly various Dioscorea species. Underground storage organs were also available in the temperate forest, steppe and savannah. Then I will discuss the wild food of agriculturalists and how they incorporated it into agro-ecosystems. The invention of agriculture introduced the use of annual leafy greens which were a by-product of land cultivation. In some regions of the world these plants are still used as food. Finally I will look at processes happening nowadays: where people gather wild food now and when they gathered it 100 years ago. In this I will mainly use the examples of Poland, Britain, Georgia and Croatia. Some traditional edible plants are forgotten, but some foods are brought back to popularity, not necessarily because they are very nutritious. Sometimes they are just easy to find in parks, or colorful, and therefore attractive on social media. The shift is from collecting arable weeds (which are now decimated by herbicides) to collecting urban weeds and plants. Although some people point out that these plants may contain pollutants, they are a hope for future wild food movement.