Indigenous knowledge based identification of medicinal plants in Central Zone of Tigray, North Ethiopia

Abstract

There are many traditional medicine practitioners in every corner of the world, which can be grouped into spiritual healers and herbalists. Both groups do not tell to others about medicinal plants sometimes even to their descendants. This may have many different reasons, some say the medicine becomes functional if it is used in secret and some do not tell others fearing for competition of market as well as the medicinal plants because their abundance is mostly limited due to over exploitation. This study was conducted in the central zone of Tigray in specific sites called Tanqua-Abergelle, Kola-Tembien and Weri-Leke with the objective of identifying of medicinal plants based on indigenous knowledge. Purposive sampling was used for respondent selection and semi-structured interviews were employed. Then, the collected data were subjected to descriptive statistical method such as percentage and frequency which was employed to analyze and summarize the data on medicinal plants. From the identified medicinal plants, 92 plant species were used to cure human disease and 29 species for animal diseases and another 8 species were used to treat both human and livestock diseases. Even though medicinal plants are very crucial particularly for the people who dwell in remote and rural areas, some medicinal plants are being endangered due to low awareness on management of these plants. Hence, policy makers and other concerned bodies should give emphasis on conservation of medicinal plants.