Authors: Andrea Pieroni, Giulia Caneva, Paolo Guarrera
Published: 2013
Publishing House: Edipuglia
ISBN: 9788872287248
Language: Italian
The text is a comprehensive guide to Ethnobotany that initially lays out the origins and workings of this scientific discipline and then shows traditional and local uses of wild plants, often considered invasive as multiple resources: from gastronomic uses to medicinal, pharmacological, ritual, religious, magical and recreational, domestic-craft, cosmetic and veterinary uses. After discussing how in the past 90 percent of the uncultivated plants found in an area had local uses closely related to the present culture, some present and future trajectories that access to this knowledge may represent are indicated. A guide that clearly demonstrates thatcircular economy principles have always accompanied cultures prior to industrialization. The importance of the discipline is already well known in the pharmaceutical industry in identifying new active ingredients for contemporary medicinal use by looking at the many past uses, without having to resort to synthetic molecules that are very difficult to dispose of by biotic elements. In addition, the subject is of fundamental importance for the conservation of natural environments and cultural capital of peoples, for agricultural and forest management purposes, as a resource for tourism, and in herbalism. The text is a clear view of past cultures that did not contemplate the concept of waste and how each actor present in such systems did not stand above it but exchanged matter, energy and information with every other actor present. The study of the past to develop solutions to present and future problems that are also the result of a distorted, linear and biased view of the ecosystem.
