How Does Urbanization Affect Perceptions and Traditional Knowledge of Medicinal Plants?

Arjona-García et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2021) 17:48 https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-021-00473-w RESEARCH Open Access How does urbanization affect perceptions and traditional knowledge of medicinal plants? Cecilia Arjona-García1, José Blancas1, Leonardo Beltrán-Rodríguez2, Citlalli López Binnqüist3, Hortensia Colín Bahena 4, Ana Isabel Moreno-Calles5, José Antonio Sierra-Huelsz 6 and Xavier López-Medellín1* Abstract Background: The use and knowledge of medicinal plants play an essential role in community health in rural Mexico. Medicinal plants are part of the local heritage and provide a source of economic income. Nevertheless, knowledge of their use has declined due to factors like accelerated urbanization. Some authors have proposed that by reducing natural spaces, urbanization generates changes that impact the recognition, use, and management of natural resources. Here, we evaluate how urbanization affects the knowledge, use, and perception of medicinal plants in a Biosphere Reserve in Mexico. Methods: Using a mixed methodology including quantitative and qualitative analyses, we generated a list of medicinal plants, methods of preparation, prevalence of illness, and use in two communities with different degrees of urbanization. Results: A total of 217 medicinal plants were identified. The more urbanized community had greater knowledge of, and used, a larger number of introduced plant species, while the less urbanized community used and had more knowledge about wild plants. One of the factors explaining these differences was occupation, with people who work outdoors showing greater knowledge of wild plants. Conclusions: Urbanization can lead to a loss of knowledge of the use and management of local wild species, with implications for the conservation of biocultural heritage. Substitution of native medicinal plants by introduced species shows disinterest and disuse in the local medicinal flora, which could be reflected in their ecosystems. Keywords: Biocultural conservation, Cultural changes, Ethnobotany, Traditional knowledge, Tropical deciduous forest * Correspondence: [email protected] 1Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Conservación (CIByC), Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Av. Universidad 1001, Colonia Chamilpa, C.P, 62209 Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2021 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. Arjona-García et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2021) 17:48 Page 2 of 26 Background plant collection. At the same time, urbanization de- Traditional knowledge of the use and management of creases people’s involvement in activities in natural envi- natural resources is a reflection of the relationship be- ronments and can lead to devaluation of and tween human communities and their physical, biotic, discrimination against traditional knowledge. Some au- and cultural environment over time [1, 2]. This relation- thors have suggested that the decreased contact between ship is mediated by the cultural, economic, and eco- people and their natural environment results in societies logical context, making it dynamic and versatile [3, 4]. that are more tolerant of the progressive loss of bio- These changes can modify traditional knowledge, such diversity [26]. Therefore, the management and transmis- that it grows, remains the same, or erodes [3]. This can sion of traditional knowledge to new generations is affect how elements of nature are used and managed, as crucial not just for the preservation of cultural heritage, well as practices, customs, beliefs, and ideas [5, 6]at but also for the prevention of biodiversity loss [26]. both the individual and group levels [4]. Consequently, The use of medicinal plants is one of the elements of there is a consensus that biodiversity conservation impli- traditional knowledge that, because it is linked directly citly involves traditional knowledge [7, 8]. to health, is particularly sensitive for local communities Some studies have shown that processes associated [27]. It is estimated that 80% of the population in devel- with modernization negatively affect the degree and oping countries use medicinal plant resources for pri- depth of knowledge of natural resources; increasing edu- mary care [28]. Their use persists in rural and urban cational level, migration, and urbanization are related to areas as a result of the transmission of knowledge, loss of the ability to recognize, name, use, and manage mostly in verbal form and between generations [29]. At plant resources [9–11]. Urbanization is a complex eco- the same time, the lack of access to public health ser- nomic process that entails social and environmental vices in rural areas incentivizes the use of medicinal changes that occur over short time periods and often plants [24, 25]. modify cultural patterns [6, 12]. This process sometimes Despite their importance, knowledge of medicinal generates innovations in the culture that, in association plants is subject to several threats due to, among other with the acquisition of prestige, motivate the displace- factors, urbanization [30, 31]. Urbanization leads to the ment of patterns of social behavior and organization loss of wild vegetation, reduction of the area dedicated [13]. At the same time, urbanization leads to drastic to traditional agriculture, and transformation of natural changes in people’s lifestyles, perceptions, and sociability areas for activities like commerce; at the same time, this [14, 15], which can directly affect the use and manage- contributes to cultural modification [32]. Land use ment of natural resources. change not only leads to the destruction of habitats of a Urbanization transforms land use and radically variety of medicinal plants but also impacts the degree changes ecological patterns and processes [16]. of knowledge of their management and uses. When me- Urbanization often includes the removal and logging of dicinal plants no longer exist in the natural environment, large areas of forests to make way for human settlements the reflection on their use is also lost between one gen- of various kinds [17]. Thus, urbanization results in a eration and the next [11, 33, 34]. Consequently, the use profound transformation of the environment, generating and management of medicinal plants could be modified alterations in biogeochemical cycles, habitat fragmenta- by a reduction in the areas of collection and propaga- tion, and changes in the abundance, diversity, and com- tion, reluctance, and decrease in their use, as well as the position of species [16, 18, 19]. It also generates changes perception of incompatibility between traditional and in the ways of feeding and in the vocation of agroecosys- western medicine [27]. tems [20–22]. At a cognitive level, urbanization can lead The general panorama of the effects of urbanization to a disconnect between people and the natural environ- on the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants re- ment, causing what Pyle (1993) [23] calls “the extinction quires more research in order to clarify how certain fac- of the experience.” tors associated with urbanization (access to official In particular, urbanization can affect people’s know- health services, migration, changing economic activities, ledge of medicinal plants, which includes recognizing, etc.), affect the use of medicinal plants in traditional naming, using, and managing species in that use cat- communities. It is important to document these pro- egory. It has been hypothesized that urban communities, cesses in bioculturally megadiverse countries with a long by having increased access to medical services, may tradition of use of medicinal plants and that currently abandon or reduce their use of medicinal plants to treat face a scenario of loss of associated biocultural heritage some illnesses and ailments [24, 25]. In addition, this due to, among other processes, urbanization. loss of knowledge and abandonment of use could be due The processes that deteriorate biocultural heritage are to a decrease in agricultural, agroforestry, and forested notorious in Mexico, one of the five most diverse coun- areas, since urbanization reduces the areas for medicinal tries worldwide [35], and where about 6,000 species of Arjona-García et al. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (2021) 17:48 Page 3 of 26 medicinal plants are used, of which at least 4,000 are as well as sociocultural factors that influence species collected from forests and

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