As plantas medicinais no município de Ouro Verde de Goiás, GO, Brasil : uma abordagem etnobotânica

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

This work depicts the utilization of medicinal plants among folk healers and members of rural and urban communities in the center of the state of Goiás, situated at 70 km from the capital, Goiânia. An authorization to grant access was requested among he CGEN/IBAMA as a way to insure the intellectual property of those informants who have the local knowledge. The Ouro Verde de Goiás county was chosen intentionally since the investigations targeted the social-cultural system that governs the natural esources in one of the seven counties that belong to the João Leite Streams Environmental Protection Area in Goiás. The selection of the study location was based on demographic and ecological criteria as it has a reduced population (around 4500 nhabitants) and a predominant forest structure, environments that had not yet been dealt with by ethnobotanic studies on the Cerrado in the state of Goiás. The field work happened between January and March 2006 and the researcher lived in a residence in he region for three months. Through the snow ball technique, six folk healers, all emales, were registered. Structured and semi-structured interviews were completed using methods of participant observation, life history and discussion groups. One hundred and thirty species distributed in 51 families were registered with the most specimens in the Asteraceae (20), Lamiaceae (10) and Fabaceae (9). The native species of Cerrado were collected in antropical and primary vegetation areas like gallery woods, boundaries of reminiscent woods originated from rain forest. The traditional knowledge ensemble allied to the informants social-cultural dynamics in the community induces them, symbolically, to be treated as local health agents that use an alternative treatment to control, prevent and even cure infirmities. The traditional knowledge of the interviewed folk healers can not be extrapolated to the other members in the community and because of that there was the necessity to verify the use of medicinal plants among informants in the rural and urban zone chosen by a simple random sample. In this approach, structures interviews were used and each informant was visited only once. The majority were female (82%) since women, almost always, are involved in domestic activities and dedicated, directly, to the care of the children and the husband. Were registered 98 species distributed among 45 families, the exotic cultivated being distinguished. Among the species that are cultivated in the backyards and also have other uses in the residence it was determined that 40% are used exclusively for therapeutical functions; 29% are used in nourishment; 21% in ornamentation; and 10% as condiment. Among the medicinal resources cultivated in the urban and rural zone backyards a similarity index of 67% was found attesting a considerable number of species in common. Associating the incidence of cited diseases with the number of cited species suggests that gripes, digestive problems and kidney illness are the most occurring infirmities in the community. It was determined that the use of medicinal plants, the number of cited species and the presence on the backyard are independent of age, educational level, gender, birth place and rural/urban precedence, results also found by other ethnobotanical studies made in Goiás and other Brazilian states.

ASSUNTO(S)

curadores populares local communities cerrado goiano comunidades locais botanica cerrado of goiás backyard espécies nativas folk healers native species quintal

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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