Ethnomedicine and Future Challenges

Abstract

Many of traditional oral and indigenous culture of tribal people has been continuously deteriorated due to large scale urban and industrial development in remote forest areas as whole economy, society and cultural legacy of tribal are dependent on their forest land which is favorite abode of tribals. One of them is ethno medical knowledge which is reliant on presence of wild fauna and flora having medicinal value. Ethnomedical knowledge is intellectual property of tribals. Displacement of tribal communities to other places and loss of medicinal plant and animal species very much affect their ethnomedicinal practices. This knowledge is apparent to become extinct in near future because of insecurity of ethnomedicinal plants and animals, limitation of knowledge to only few persons (sacred specialists, diviner, sorcerer) of community, being oral tradition, absence of written form, limitation to cure only small scale diseases and push and pull factor among tribal youths to do government jobs in urban areas. Therefore, it is need of time to preserve this knowledge for future generations Preservation of this traditional knowledge can be done by lessening the exploitation of natural resources, by documentation to make its wider reach, by making tribal youths aware about its benefits and opting this as a carrier option, and most important is by linking this ethnomedicinal knowledge with modern medicine system..