Abstract
The study was conducted to investigate and document medicinal plants and associated knowledge on the utilization, management, preparation, and way of administration of the medicinal plant resources in Ensaro district, north Shewa zone, Ethiopia. A total of 100 informants were sampled from four study sites, and questionnaire surveys, semistructured interviews, ranking, and transect walk techniques were employed for data collection in midland, lowland, and highland agroecology and natural forests, riverine forests, and farmlands. Vast sources of the traditional healing knowledge of plant species conveyed from one generation to the next by word of mouth were from a family. A total of 101 medicinal plant species were identified from the study site, which belong to 95 genera and 49 families. These medicinal plants are used to treat about 35 types of human ailments. Families Fabaceae and Poaceae were represented by the highest number of medicinal plant species, followed by the Asteraceae, Lamiaceae, and Euphorbiaceae species. Out of the total medicinal plants’ species, 46.53% were herbs and 33.66% were shrubs. Most of them have medicinal properties in their leaf, root, seed, bark, stem, latex, sap seed, and fruits. Medicine from these plant parts is prepared in fresh, dried, and both fresh and dried states. The highest informant consensus was documented for the plant Ocimum lamiifolium used by 75% of informants for its medicinal value in treating fibril illness. Cucumis ficifolius and Eucalyptus globules are used by 41% and 39% of informants ranking second and third, respectively, for their medicinal value. This study revealed that indigenous knowledge of traditional medicine is still popular among local communities in the study area. The conservation strategy practiced by local people is not enough to tackle the erosion of plant species from their habitats. Thus, the conservation of these plants and the associated knowledge base is very essential.
1. Introduction
Plants are the most essential to human well-being in providing basic human needs. Human beings started using plants for disease control and prevention since time immemorial. According to Martin [1], ethnobotany is a wide term referring to the study of people’s classification, management, and use of plants. Early humans acquired knowledge on the utilization of plants for disease prevention and curative purposes through many years of experience, careful observations, and trial and error experiments [1, 2] Such ethnomedicinal knowledge involves traditional diagnosis, collection of raw materials, preparation of remedies, and prescription to the patients. From the evidence provided by Kibebew [3], it is estimated that about 75–90% of the rural population in the world excluding western countries depends on traditional medicines as their only healthcare system.
In general, ethnobotany is the scientific investigation of plants as used in indigenous culture for food, medicine, magic, rituals, building, household utensils and implements, musical instruments, firewood, pesticides, clothing, shelter, and other purposes [4]. There are several plants that possess not only medicinal value but also provide materials for survival, economic, and forage values and preserve cultural heritages, biological information, and indigenous knowledge. For example, forest resources are home to an estimated 60 million indigenous people, who are directly dependent on forest resources and the health of forest ecosystems for their livelihoods [5]. Nature is always a golden sign to show the prominent phenomena of coexistence. Natural products from plants, animals, and minerals are the basis for treating human diseases [6]. Medicinal plants are presently in demand, and their acceptance is increasing progressively [7]. Awareness and application of plants to prepare food and medicine have been realized through trial and error, and gradually, humans were able to meet their needs from their surroundings [8]. Information about medicinal plants has long been transmitted gradually and from generation to generation; this increased knowledge has allowed us to uncover the medicinal properties of plants and their potential benefits for human health. Through scientific research and technological advancements, we have gained a more comprehensive understanding of various fields, including medicine.
Currently, increasingly, scientists and pharmaceutical companies are also looking at traditional knowledge to identify new drugs by combining with modern scientific methods and researchers. So the integration of traditional knowledge and scientific research holds great potential for identifying new drug sources and advancing medical science; herbal drugs can help the emergence of a new era of the healthcare system to treat human diseases in the future. However, in Africa, the traditional knowledge of the utilization of plants was undocumented. Most of the knowledge acquired by local people has been passed on to them by word of mouth from one generation to the other [9]. The majority of people in Ethiopia still depend on traditional medicine mainly due to the shortage of pharmaceuticals, inadequate coverage of the modern medical system, and unaffordable prices of modern drugs [10]. In Ethiopia, little emphasis has been given to ethnobotanical (ethnomedicinal) studies over the past decades [11, 12] even if there has been some attempt to investigate medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge on sustainable use and management of plant resources. The lack of conservation actions and activities is observed in Ensaro woreda (district), which is similar to other areas in Ethiopia. Even though based on the information gathered from Ensaro woreda agricultural extension, it is known that the woreda has relatively better plant resources, and hence, the associated traditional knowledge resource is expected to be significant.
The current plant use trend shows that the environment is facing problems by both natural and anthropogenic factors of resource depletion and loss of indigenous knowledge such as in other areas of the country. Thus, concerted ethnobotanical research plays a vital role in gathering information on plants and related indigenous knowledge for conservation and sustainable utilization. However, to have the full picture of ethnomedicinal knowledge of societies in Ethiopia, geographical, cultural, and botanical diversity studies need to be included. Recently, some studies were conducted on ethnobotanical and associated indigenous knowledge at some localities of Ethiopia but, since Ethiopia has rich plant diversity and diverse ethnolinguistic groups, there is a wide gap in our knowledge about ethnobotanical data and information from various parts of Ethiopia, so it needs a lot of research. Nevertheless, no study was conducted to include medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge of the local communities of Ensaro woreda in the medicinal records of Ethiopia. The present study was conducted to identify the medicinal plants used to treat human ailments in the local communities of Ensaro district, north Shewa zone of Amhara region, Ethiopia.
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Description of the Study Area
Ensaro woreda is found in the north Shewa zone of Amhara Regional State in Ethiopia. Geographically, the woreda is located between 9° 35′–9° 55′N and 38° 50′–39° 5′E with an average elevation of 2,435 meters above sea level (Figure 1). The woreda has one urban kebele and 13 rural kebeles. The capital city of the woreda is Lemi town which is located 130 km northwest of Addis Ababa and 85 km from Debre Birhan. Based on the 2007 National Census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency (CSA) of Ethiopia, the woreda has a total population of 58,203, of whom 29,888 were male and 28,315 female; 3,164 (5.44%) were urban inhabitants [13]. Based on the study by Abirham [14], Ensaro is bordered in the south and west by the Oromia Region, in the north by Jemma River which separates it from Merhabiete woreda, in the northeast by Moretna Jiru, and in the east by Siyadebrina Wayu woreda. The woreda’s total land area is 44,217.6 hectares. Out of these undulating areas, it covers about 50% flat plains, 40% mountainous, and others 10%. According to the woreda administration and community classification, the woreda’s agroecology is subdivided into kola (33%), woinadega (46%), and dega (21%).
Ensaro woreda was selected purposively due to the presence of good natural forest and low accessibility of roads and infrastructure. A reconnaissance survey of the study area was conducted from December 29, 2019, to January 4, 2020. Four kebeles, namely, Wokolo with a high altitude located southeast of Lemi town, Gezawasha from a low altitude located west of Lemi town, and Salayesh and Gosh wuha from a medium altitude area located northeast of Lemi, were purposefully selected from the total of 13 kebeles depending on accessibility, vegetation cover, altitude, agroecology, and availability of traditional practitioners.
2.2. Climate
Climate is one of the elements of the physical environment which has a pronounced impact on settlement patterns, human way of life, the type of soil, flora, and fauna that existed and/or developed so forth. Among different climatic elements, temperature and rainfall have a considerable impact in such an agrarian country such as Ethiopia and more actually in the area under study. Twenty years (1998–2018) of meteorological data were taken from the Addis Ababa National Meteorology Service Agency (recorded from Lemi station), indicating that the distribution of the rainfall unimodal (one rainfall peak) pattern obtains high rainfall between June and August and low rainfall in March to May, and the dry season extends from September to February; the evidence has been obtained from the Addis Ababa National Meteorology Service Agency [15]. The mean annual rainfall of the study area within twenty years was 1,224 mm, whereas the lowest mean annual temperature over twenty years was 8.8°C, and the highest was 20°C (Figure 2).
2.2.1. Selection of Informants
A total of 100 informants (80 male and 20 female) aged between 22 and 82 were selected randomly from the selected kebeles. From the total of 100 informants, 20 informants (five key informants from each kebele) were purposefully selected as key informants by using information and recommendations from local healers, elders, kebele administrators, and kebele developmental agents (DAs) by using purposive sampling approaches, respectively, following [1, 16]. The local healer gives priority as key informants.
2.2.2. Ethnobotanical Data Collected
Ethnobotanical data were collected between December and March 2020. Ethnobotanical data were collected in very close interaction with informants using semistructured questions prepared beforehand in English and translated to Amharic (the language of the inhabitants during interview administration). The interviews were based on and around this checklist, and some issues were raised promptly depending on the responses of an informant. All of the interviews were held in Amharic. In a more structured interview, the healers were asked about plants, uses, and the method of preparation of plants, route of administration as well as storage, side effects, contradiction, and antidotes of herbal preparations. Important ethnobotanical information was gathered that was provided by informants.
2.2.3. Specimen Collection
Specimens collected during the guided field walk were pressed, numbered, dried, and given vernacular names on each sheet and dried for identification. Identification of specimens was carried out both in the field and in the herbarium. Identification was also carried out using the Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea compared with already identified voucher specimens. Finally, the identified specimens were stored at the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute (EBI) herbarium.
2.2.4. Analysis of Ethnobotanical Data
Data were analysed following the survey and analytical tools for ethnobotanical methods as recommended by Martine, Cotton, and Cunningham [1, 17, 18]. The ethnobotanical data were analysed using quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis. Descriptive statistics such as percentage, frequency distribution, and graphs were used to analyse the data collected through semistructured, open-ended, and some close-ended questions.
Preference ranking was conducted to evaluate the degree of preferences or levels of importance of certain selected plants or parts of plants and following Martine and Cotton [1, 17] by using six of the key informants who were randomly identified and who were invited to rank nine medicinal plant species that are used for the treatment of stomachaches because it is a frequently appearing disease in the study area and informed by several informants, and the ranking was based on the informants’ perceptions (Table 1). Accordingly, each informant was assigned the value based on their preference for the plant species that are used. Finally, the total score was identified, and the rank of each species was stated by integer values. These helped to indicate the most effective medicinal plants for stomachaches.
A paired comparison was made for five medicinal plants used to treat snakebites in the study area. Seven key informants were selected to give rank to these medicinal plant species based on their efficiency in treating the disease (Table 2). This approach is useful in guiding decisions on which plants or plant parts to prioritize for further research in drug discovery.
Direct matrix ranking was carried out following the methods of Martine [1] and Cotton [17]. To compare the multipurpose use of a given species, six most widely utilized multipurpose plant species were selected out of the total medicinal plants, and seven use diversities of these plants were selected. The seven use values include medicinal, fodder, firewood, construction, charcoal, fencing, and income making. In the direct matrix ranking exercise, each key informant was asked to assign use values as follows: 5 = excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = less used, 1 = least used, and 0 = not used, for each species, and the average value of use diversity for a species was taken; the values for use reports across the selected species were summed up and ranked (Table 3). Similarly, six randomly selected key informants were selected for the ranking of the seven most threatened medicinal plants based on the report of their threatened condition by informants following Cotton [17] (Table 4). These helped to indicate the most threatened plant species. Accordingly, seven key informants were selected to assign use values to every six factors threatening medicinal plant species and asked to give a value of 1 to least destructive and 5 to most destructive ones(Table 5).
2.2.5. Informant Consensus and Informant Consensus Factor
The informant consensus method was used to show certain plant species cited by informants against human ailment (Table 6), and the method was adopted from Alexiades [16]. The informant consensus factor (ICF) is calculated for each category to identify the agreements of the informants on the reported cures for the group of ailments (Table 7). The ICF was calculated as follows: the number of use citations in each category (nur) minus the number of species used (nt) divided by the number of use citations in each category minus one. The factor provides a range of 0 to 1, where a high value acts as a good indicator of a high rate of the informant consensus:
3. Results and Discussion
3.1. Sociodemography of the Informants
A total of hundred informants were used for the study purposes; out of them, eighty (80%) male and twenty (20%) female informants took part in this study. Out of a hundred informants, forty-three (43%) of the informants were found between the ages of 20 and 40, and the remaining fifty-seven (57%) informants were older than 40 years old. Much of the knowledge of medicinal plants in the study area was obtained from older informants when compared with young people. Concerning the action taken when they faced a disease, out of the total informants, seventy (70%) of them responded to control by their own or self-care prepared from home remedies, twenty (25%) of informants visited the local traditional healer or herbalists, and the remaining five (5%) informants reported a modern clinic to be their first choice against the disease specifically for fibril illness, skin allergy, snakebite, jaundice, and scorpion bite. These results clearly show that most of the local people in the study area still now have their primary choice depending on traditional medicinal plants because based on the information gathered during the interview, the modern clinic has not given effective treatment for such kinds of diseases.
3.2. Source of Healing Knowledge
Most of the informants, especially the traditional medicine practitioners (TMP) or traditional healers, in the study area reported that the highest and the most commonly cited source of wisdom of healing was obtained informally from their family. Approximately 73% of the informants reported their family as the highest and most commonly cited source of wisdom for healing, followed by friends (15%). Additionally, a smaller percentage of informants mentioned that they gained knowledge through observation when others were practicing healing techniques (7%). doing (7%). Most of the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants is passed orally and secretly from generation to generation in fragile forms without any documentation. According to the information that was obtained from informants, still now some of the local traditional healers do not volunteer to transfer knowledge to their children, and also, due to modernization, most of the children (the young generation) showed reluctance and carelessness to gain knowledge from their family. Little emphasis has been given to ethnobotanical or traditional medicinal plants. These results agreed with the findings of the authors in [19], indicating that most sources of healing wisdom were obtained from the family. Other similar studies [20] show that most of the traditional knowledge of medicinal plants is passed orally and secretly along the family line from parents accounted for 73.6% followed by observation (19.4%) and learning (7%) from other people.
3.3. Taxonomic Diversity of Medicinal Plants in the Study Area
A total of 101 medicinal plant species belonging to 95 genera and 49 families were collected, identified, and documented across the study areas. The summary of the list of medicinal plant species used in Ensaro district to treat various disease conditions is given in Table 8. These medicinal plants are used to treat about 35 types of human ailments. Both families Fabaceae and Poaceae were represented by the highest number of medicinal plant species (9), followed by Asteraceae with 7 and Lamiaceae and Euphorbiaceae represented with 6 species. This result is in line with earlier studies conducted in Ethiopia that indicated Fabaceae had the largest number of medicinal plants [19, 21–23] reported that the family Fabaceae is the highest family. Other studies in a different part of Ethiopia such as the findings of [20, 24, 25] reported that the family Asteraceae is dominant followed by the family Lamiaceae.
3.4. Habitat of Medicinal Plants
In this study, a total of 101 plant species were collected and identified that were used as traditional medicine and harvested in the study area. Of the total medicinal plant, 62% was collected from the wild, followed by 29% from cultivated land, and the remaining 9% was collected from different habitats such as home gardens, on the side of the river, and in agricultural margins or fields (Figure 3). This result is in line with other studies [26] conducted in Ethiopia East Welega Zone of Oromia Regional State and [27] indicated that most medicinal plants are collected from the wild rather than home gardens.
3.5. Growth Forms of Medicinal Plants
The growth form of medicinal plants in the study area showed that herbs are the dominant life form of medicinal plants. Among the reported medicinal plants, herbs consisted 47 (46%) followed by shrubs comprising 34 (34%), trees 13 (13%), and climbers 7 (7%) in the study area (Figure 4). Most of the different research studies conducted elsewhere in Ethiopia such as [19, 28, 29] and others reported that herbs constitute the highest category of medicinal plants. On the contrary, studies reported [24, 30–32] revealed that shrubs were the most used form of medicinal plants.
3.6. Conditions for Preparation of Herbal Remedies
The local people of the study area reported that they prepared remedies using fresh, dried, or both types of plant materials. The result showed that the majority 64 (61%) of medicinal plants were prepared in fresh conditions, whereas 35 (34%) were prepared in dry conditions, and the remaining 5 (5%) were reported to be used in both dry and fresh forms (Figure 5). The reason why most of the respondents in the study area use fresh plant parts for the preparation of remedies could be due to the accessibility and availability of medicinal plants in the study area. This finding is consistent with the findings of [31, 33]. Moreover, other studies such as [22, 34] also reported that most prepared remedies were used immediately after harvest. However, people in the study area prepared medicine in the form of drying conditions to increase shelf life and for future long-time use because some medicinal plants are seasonal.
3.7. Route of Administration of Medicinal Plants and Way of Application
Concerning modes of administration, medicinal plants were reported to be applied through different routes of administration based on the method of preparation, the actual site of alignments, and the type of disease treated. There are various routes of administration of traditional medicinal plants prepared products by the local community. The major routes of administration in the study area are oral, dermal, nasal, and optical. Oral administration is the dominant route (49%), followed by the dermal route (30%) and nasal route (18%) (Figure 6). These results are consistent with the findings of various ethnobotanical research studies in different areas of Ethiopia [26, 28].
3.8. Plant Parts Used
Different plant parts were used for medicinal purposes, and the leaf was the most frequently utilized part accounting (34%) for the remedy preparation, followed by roots (23%) (Figure 7). A higher preference for leaves over other plant parts could be due to ease of preparation and better treatment of a disease. While using leaves for medicinal preparations may not pose a significant threat to plant species, utilizing other parts such as roots, bark, and stems can have negative consequences. The overharvesting of these plant parts can disrupt the ecological balance and potentially endanger the survival of medicinal plant species. Therefore, it is crucial to implement proper conservation and sustainable measures to protect these plants and ensure their long-term viability. This finding is in line with the results of other ethnobotanical studies [31, 33] which reported that leaves were the most cited plant parts used in remedy preparations. However, other studies by Abebe and Ayehu [35] reported a different result which showed that roots were the most frequently utilized plant parts.
3.9. Method of Herbal Medicine Preparation
In the study area, medicinal plants have various methods of preparation and also the mode of application of the medicine for different types of ailments, and they have various preparation forms (Figure 8). Accordingly, the information gathered from the informants of the study site most frequently reported that the preparation method was pounding (34%), followed by grinding (powdering) (21%) and chewing (12%).
3.10. Importance of Medicinal Plants in the Study Area
3.10.1. Preference Ranking
When there were different species reported for the same health problem, people show a preference for one over the other, depending on the potential of plants to treat the disease. Accordingly, preference ranking analysis was conducted on nine medicinal plants that were reported for treating stomachaches. As shown in Table 1, the result of this analysis revealed that preference ranking of the nine most common and widely used medicinal plants that were reported to treat stomachaches (because it is a frequently occurring disease in the study site) indicated that Cucumis ficifolius is the first one, followed by Ziziphus spina-christi, and Maytenus arbutifolia, Ruta chalepensis, Foeniculum vulgare, Zingiber officinale, and Calpurnia aurea have ranking from 3rd to 7th, respectively, which are preferred for the treatment of stomachaches.
3.10.2. Paired Comparison
Seven key informants performed the paired comparison of five medicinal plants, and the value is summed, summarized, and finally ranked (Table 2). It was found that Andrachne aspera species ranks first for the treatment of snake poisons followed by Cyphostemma cyphopetalum which ranks 2nd. The remaining Clerodendrum myricoides, Carissa spinarum, and Barleria priorities were 3rd, 4th, and 5th ranks, respectively. Carissa spinarum and Barleria priorities were the least preferred species to treat the snakebite disease in the area. The rank shows the efficacy of the plant to treat snake poisons according to a long practice of local people using plants to treat these ailments.
3.10.3. Direct Matrix Ranking
Several medicinal plants were reported for having to be multipurpose species which are being utilized for a variety of uses due to their medicinal value (Table 3). Six commonly reported multipurpose species and seven use categories were involved in direct matrix ranking with five key informants. The results of the direct matrix ranking revealed that Eucalyptus globulus and Ziziphus spina-christi were ranked 1st and 2nd and hence are the most preferred medicinal plants by local people for various uses. Due to this reason, Ziziphus spina-christi is a threatened species in the study site, but Eucalyptus globulus is abundant because it is planted by humans.
3.10.4. Informant Consensus
Concerning informant consensus analysis of informants in the study area showed that some medicinal plants were more popular or cited by many individuals than others (Table 6). However, certain medicinal plant species were independently cited by many of the informants for their medicinal uses against human ailments. Accordingly, Ocimum lamiifolium was the most cited traditional medicinal plant in the study area accounting 75 (75%) followed by Cucumis ficifolius 41 (41%) in the study area.
3.10.5. Informant Consensus Factor
Based on the findings of this study, the ICF of medicinal plant usage was found between the ranges of 0.75 and 0.97 per illness category (Table 7). As a result, it was found that febrile illness (headache, “Mitch”) scored the highest informant consensus factor of 0.97 followed by stomachaches having a score of an ICF of 0.95. This result indicates that the informants use relatively few species to manage specific disease conditions as well as have consistency in the use of plant species, while a low value indicates that the informants disagree on the species to be used in the treatment within a category of illness.
3.10.6. Dosage Use, a Side Effect of Herbal Medicine, and Its Antidotes
The majority of traditional healers use different measurements for dosage prescription and apply them to treat different health problems and have not seen their clear side effects. Traditional medicine, such as any other form of medication, can also have potential side effects. Some common side effects of traditional medicine may include vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, gastric (burning sensation), mouth smell, loss of appetite, sweating, and urination which were the most common side effects for those remedies taken orally. Similar side effects of medicinal plants were also reported in a research paper [36]. But communities use different local materials (units) for the measurement of dosage and the duration of administration of herbal medicine. Local units, for instance, glass, half cup, full cup, one or two spoons, finger length for bark, number of the root, and stem, were employed. Several different parts of plants such as leaves, seeds, fruits, and shoot tips were also used to estimate and fix the amount dosage. For example, seven seeds of Lens culinaris were used for the treatment of skin disease caused by a spider. Seven fresh leaves of Carissa spinarum are chewed to treat snake poison, and seven Capsicum annum fruits to prepare herbal medicine for the treatment of jaundice are used. The full-dose determination varied from a healer to a healer, and the dose given depends on age, physical strength, and health conditions. For example, a half cup was used for children, and a full cup was used for an adult. Similar findings were also reported using different local units to determine the dosage of herbal medicine [19].
Different antidotes are administered by the local healer against vomiting, diarrhea, and gastric burning such as porridge of lentil, drunk filtered (liquid) of boiled lentil, milk, coffee, “atemit,” red teff porridge, and the mixture of coffee and milk. In addition to these, some foods such as bread and fish are not recommended to consume for some disease. This finding is similar to that reported by another researcher [37] who reported milk, coffee, and red teff porridge were used as antidotes for different herbal medicines.
3.10.7. Threats to Medicinal Plants and Conservation Practices
People of the study area reported that ten and fifteen years ago in most parts of Ensaro woreda and its surroundings, the accessibility of plant species for medicinal purposes, construction, and firewood was very high both in the number and diversity and can access near home. Currently, it is too difficult to get these traditional medicinal plants easily. Due to population growth, the demand for wood material, agricultural expansion, and urbanization are increased and thus have effects in threatening the medicinal plants and associated indigenous knowledge of the study area. Different threat factors were mentioned by the informants. The major factors arise mostly from anthropogenic causes. Among the problems, firewood collection due to high population pressure (1st rank) was considered the main threat to medicinal plants, and others are charcoal production, fencing, and agricultural expansion which were ranked 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, respectively (Table 5).
A similar study [25] reported that medicinal plants used by Minjar Shekora people in north Shewa Ethiopia were highly threatened by deforestation for agricultural expansion and other purposes. Concerning the conservation of traditional medicinal plants and associated indigenous knowledge, there were no successfully available conservation efforts in the woreda. But, since two or three years ago, the woreda had started to set special rules concerning natural resource protection mechanisms, some of which strictly forbid cutting any tree from anywhere, organizing the farmer to construct terraces by selecting the area which is more exposed to erosion, and the woreda agricultural office distribute indigenous tree nursery to the different agroecological zones of kebeles for plantation. That is very important to save and recover degraded land. On the other hand, it was also observed that local farmers make use of their indigenous knowledge in protecting important plant species on their farmlands, home gardens, and as life fences. In addition to this, some traditional healers try to cultivate very few species in their home gardens that cannot easily be found within the area at any time. Still, now, the woreda administration is not giving priority to conserving traditional medicinal plants and their associated indigenous knowledge of the people, rather than the whole biodiversity conservation practices.
3.10.8. Threatened Medicinal Plants
According to key informants, it is revealed that medicinal plant species were considered to be threatened in the study area (Table 4). Based on the perception of the community, Withania somnifera is the most threatened plant species followed by Andrachne aspera, whereas Cucumis ficifolius, Olea europaea, and Ximenia americana have taken 3rd, 4th, and 5th ranks, respectively.
3.10.9. Marketability of Medicinal Plants in Ensaro Woreda
The majority of traditional medicinal plants were not available for sale in the local markets of Ensaro subcity, and also, medicinal plants in the study area are not sold in the market for the specific purpose of medicine. The list of medicinal plants that were traded in the study area is given in Table 9. Even if local people prefer either collecting these plants by themselves from the available areas (vegetation) in the district to prepare the medicines or prefer going directly to local healers to obtain treatments instead of buying medicinal plants from the market. However, medicinal plant species that are widely traded that serve different purposes such as spicing foods, firewood, and construction are some of the most important and sold in the market.
4. Conclusion
Ensaro district is relatively rich in medicinal plants’ diversity and associated indigenous knowledge. The knowledge of plant uses for various purposes also varies among various social groups. Large numbers of medicinal plant species were collected from the wild, whereas the remaining ones were collected from cultivated land. Therefore, awareness creation is the time needed to improve the local community’s knowledge of the importance and management of plants both in their natural habitats (in situ) and out of their natural habitats (ex situ) such as field gene banks and home gardens. The government also gives recognition to the local healer to apply their traditional practices which are known for their proven safety and effectiveness to avoid erosion of the indigenous knowledge and to ensure its sustainable use. Most of the plants are found under threats in the study area, which is directly related to the decline of traditional medicinal knowledge. One of the main reasons for the decline of these traditional medicinal plants in the area arises from deforestation for firewood, charcoal, agricultural expansion, and construction. In addition to these threats, the utilization of these plants for medicinal purposes is negligible. Other threats to traditional indigenous knowledge are the way of transferring knowledge which is oral-based, the reluctance of the young generation to gain knowledge, the expansion of modern health institutions, the influence of modern education, and awareness factors. Therefore, besides conserving such a wealth of information hidden among the local people, it is also important to connect and apply them to modern knowledge of science and technology to meet the ever-increasing requirements of humankind. Therefore, it is important to create awareness about the conservation of these biological resources, and the importance of maintaining the knowledge of herbal medicine should be made among the healers to avoid erosion of indigenous knowledge and to ensure its sustainable use.
Data Availability
The data used to support the findings of this study are included in the article.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Authors’ Contributions
All the authors made meaningful contributions to this study in data collection, identification of plants, preparation, and editing of the manuscript.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute for its material and financial support. The authors would also like to thank all the staff of Ensaro woreda who facilitated the study and the community members that participated during the interview and their cooperation and hospitality during the study.