Ethnobotanical Study on the Traditional Knowledge of Vascular Plant Resources in South Korea

Abstract

The great part of the traditional knowledge on ethnobotanical plants and their uses is gradually vanishing due to industrialization, therefore ethnobotanical studies that explore and preserve the knowledge are in urgent needed before the knowledge are lost ever. This study was conducted to record and conserve the traditional knowledge of botanical taxa in Korea from 2006 to 2014. According to the survey results, derived from 17,328 sheets of 1,771 residents at 868 places, the ethnobotanical plants in Korea consisted of a total 924 taxa; 130 families, 493 genera, 813 species, 7 subspecies, 92 varieties and 12 form. Of them, herbs were 619 taxa (67.0%) and woody plants were 305 taxa (33.0%). 707 taxa (76.5%) out of 924 taxa grow wild, 44 taxa (4.8%) were cultivated wild species, 145 taxa (15.7%) were introduced for cultivation, and 28 taxa (3.0%) were naturalized plants. The analysis of usage for 924 taxa showed that the edible use was the highest with 58.9%, followed by medicinal with 26.9%, material with 3.7% and ornamental with 2.3%, respectively. The leaf of plant was the most useful part, followed by stem and root. Quantitative analysis of the ethnobotanical plants in Korea was performed by the basic values of FC, NU and UR, and indices of CI, RFC, RI and CV. As a result, The CI place Artemisia princeps in first position, followed by Aster scaber, Kalopanax septemlobus. The RFC place A. scaber in first position, followed by A. princeps, Aralia elata. The RI place A. princeps in first position, followed by Pinus densiflora, Morus alba. The CV place A. princeps in first position, followed by P. densiflora, K. septemlobus. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 서 언 '전통지식(Traditional Knowledge; TK)'은 일반적으로 '특 정 지역과 문화, 또는 사회와 관련되며, 그 지역에서 자연환경 과 함께 대대로 살아온 주민들에 의해 형성된 지식체로서 생태 학적 및 사회경제적, 문화적 환경에 관련된 실천적 지식이며, 인간 중심적 역동적 및 경험적, 문화적 가치를 지닌다'라고 정의 되기도 하지만(Kim et al., 2003; Laird, 2002), 세부적 활용유 형에 따라서 구체적인 개념은 차별화되고 있다. 세계 각 지역의 민족들은 그들만의 오랜 경험과 문화적 전통 을 바탕으로 주변의 자연환경을 다양한 방법으로 이용해왔다. 특히 식물자원은 인간이 살아가는데 중요한 식량자원이며, 질 병 치료를 위한 약용자원으로 각 지역민들은 다양한 방법으로 주변식물을 이용해왔다(Cunningham, 2001). 2010년 생물다양 성협약 제 10차 당사국총회(CBD COP11)에서는 유전자원에 대 한 주권주의와 오랜 세월동안 자국민의 경험에 의해 획득된 전 통지식(Traditional Knowledge)에 대한 권리를 보고하고, 그 지식으로 파생된 이익을 공유하기 위한 '유전자원 접근 및 이익 공유(ABS: Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing) Korean J. Plant Res. 29(1):062-089(2016)