Review of ethnobotanical literature from eastern and southern Africa

(A.B. Cunningham)



1. Introduction

One of the needs identified by participants of the workshop on an African Ethnobotany Network was for a review of past literature and themes that have been followed within African ethnobotanical work. This review of ethnobotanical studies in East and southern Africa is a first step in this process. Some literature is certainly left out: far too much valuable data is inaccessible as "grey literature". This needs to be rectified: first, through placement of copies in the AETFAT (Association for the Taxonomic Study of the Flora of Tropical Africa) library, and secondly, through publication of results of these studies in internationally refereed journals. It is hoped that network members from West Africa will follow the next AETFAT Congress with a review of West African (and particularly francophone) ethnobotanical literature. In this way, the African Ethnobotany Network can stimulate a coordinated approach which avoids research repetition, disseminates information and stimulates publication of research in international journals. At present, the only African regional initiatives which facilitate a coordinated approach to research are the NAPRECA (Natural Products Network for Eastern and Central Africa) group in East Africa and the Indigenous Plants Use Forum (IPUF) in South Africa.

As ethnobotanical research is at the interface between disciplines, it poses an interesting problem in terms of literature review. Significant contributions are made to this field of study by anthropologists, archaeologists, architects, chemists, linguists and naturalists as well as botanists. Ethnobotanical research in East and southern Africa could be divided into five main themes in roughly historical order:

(i) a focus, for more than a century, on recording vernacular names and uses;

(ii) nutritional and chemical analyses of edible and medicinal wild plants species. These were compiled in Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk's classic (1962) book on East and southern African medicinal plants and by Fox and Norwood-Young (1982) and Wehmeyer (1986) on edible plants for southern Africa and Fowden and Wolfe (1957), Imbamba's (1973), Miege and Miege (1979) and Kalenga Saka and Msonthi (1994) for East and south-central Africa;

(iii) the studies of the quantities of plant material used and/or frequnecy of use, starting with Quin's (1959) and Scudder's (1962) records of edible plant use, and then since the late 1970's, on measurement of wood use for fuel and building purposes ((Best, 1979; Whitlow, 1979; Gandar, 1983; Liengme, 1983; Erkiila and Siiskonen, 1990; Grundy, 1996; Grundy et al., 1993; Vermeulen, 1993, 1996) and on use of introduced Acacia species in the Fynbos biome (Azorin, 1992). The most comprehensive review of wood use is by Campbell and Mangomo (1994). Working in East Africa, novel methods have been used by Johns and Kokwaro (1991) and Johns et al. (1994) on food and medicinal plant use. A recent focus of quantitative has also been on human impacts (iv below) and on the ecological benefits from tree conservation, values and social importance of trees (see (v) below);

(iv) quantitiative studies on human impacts on plant resources, particularly those entering commercial trade, such as the impact of palm sap tapping (Cunningham, 1990a,b), the harvesting of aloe resins (Bond, 1983), craft materials (Cunningham and Milton, 1987; Cunningham, 1987, 1988b), traditional medicines (Cunningham, 1991, 1993), Phragmites australis reeds (Cunningham, 1985) and Cymbopogon thatching grass (Shackleton, 1990).

(v) most recently, valuation studies: of forest use in Kenya (Emerton, 1996) and woodlands in southern Africa (Campbell 1994; Campbell and Bradley, 1994; Lynam et al., 1994; Campbell et al., 1995; in press; Hot Springs Group, 1995; Shackleton, 1996).



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