מחברים: Rivka Ofir, Roni Lev, Miriam Ron & Ilan Stavi

כתב העת: Sustainable Environment

פרטים נוספים: https://doi.org/10.1080/27658511.2023.2278831

תקציר:

The Saint Catherine region of southern Sinai Peninsula’s drylands encompasses a unique combina-
tion of geophysical conditions. These features have formed highly diverse habitats, which support
extremely complex plant communities. Throughout history, the local Bedouin population has used
many of these plants for therapeutic purposes. The objectives of this study were to document the
medicinal knowledge for as many as possible plant species, evaluate this ethnobotanic knowledge
against a modern biomedical database, and identify links between the two disciplines. On-site
gathering of information, through structured interviews with two local key informants, revealed
the traditional use of 90 native vegetation species for a range of therapeutic purposes. Surveying
the modern biomedical uses of these plant species in the PubMed database revealed medicinal use
for 41 of them, as well as other plant species without known traditional therapeutic uses. Of the 41
plant species, in-depth integration of traditional and modern knowledge was implemented for 20
species, for which sufficient information was found in the PubMed. The results highlight the
common ground between the two disciplines, and propose bridges between traditional and
modern medicines. The study stresses the need for additional research in ethnobotany, which
may assist in developing new plant-based medications.