Estudo etnobotânico em comunidades ribeirinhas da Reserva de Desenvolvimento Sustentável do Uatumã, Amazonas, Brasil.

Abstract

It is likely that the medicinal use of plants is as old as man himself. Man’s relationship with nature is complex and arises from the dynamics that involve his actions, which in turn modify the environment in which he is inserted. Even though nature carries out its own transformations, man is primarily responsible for the greatest changes in nature over time. It is man who is responsible for the environmental problems resulting from his actions that threaten not only the extinction of biodiversity on Earth, but also of the human race itself. To understand the context of the development of traditional communities, it is essential to the recognize the worth of traditional knowledge, which led to the involvement of the community and the development of a sense of shared responsibility. A total of 58 residents were interviewed, of which 10 belong to the community of Manain, 22 to Maracarana, 10 to São Benedito and 16 are from the community of Bela Vista. Of the total respondents, 86% are native to the state of Amazonas. Most of the residents interviewed were aged between 41 and 55 years (48%), and the older ones (over 55 years) correspond to 19% of the interviewed community members. Men represent 60% (35) of the total respondents, while women represent 40% (23). In the botanical survey, the most representative families in number of species were Fabaceae with 8 species, which represents 13.6% of the total number of species, followed by Lamiaceae with 5 species (8.5 %), Araceae and Rutaceae with 3 species each, representing a percentage of 5.1 for each family. The use of bitter and sweet cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz) was mentioned by all informants. In total, this plant was cited 132 times, which represents 31.88% of the total citations, with bitter cassava being cited 115 times and sweet cassava 17 times. This high number of citations reflects the importance of this species both in food use and in the family income of the respondents, since 81.7% of the community cited cassava flour as the most commonly produced food in the communities.