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- Convenors:
-
Laura Kor
(Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
Mauricio Diazgranados (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Friday 29 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Colombia is one of the most bioculturally diverse countries in the world. However, it is undergoing rapid economic, environmental, and social change. We discuss how a range of methods can uncover plant uses and help conserve biodiversity and traditional knowledge, supporting sustainable development.
Long Abstract:
Colombia ranks second in the world for the number of plant species it supports and is recognised as one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Despite its biocultural richness, the country is marked with vast social inequality and rural poverty. Following years of internal conflict, the country's 2016 Peace Agreement has provided new conservation opportunities, alongside rapid socio-economic change. National policies focusing on sustainable biodiversity use in Colombia have recently been promoted, recognising the potential of native plants and fungi to improve livelihoods and economic development. However, knowledge of useful species remains dispersed and is increasingly eroded, with the loss of both biodiversity and traditional ecological knowledge.
In this panel, we bring together researchers and practitioners in Colombia and the UK who are working on the documentation and conservation of useful plants in Colombia. Talks will detail plant uses and knowledge through a range of methods, including archival research, citizen science, and systematic searches. The integration of such findings with ecological, biogeographical, and conservation methods will be highlighted, to enable conservation for the benefit of both people and nature. The panel will highlight how the application of inter-disciplinary methods, combined with a collaborative approach and outputs aimed at a broad range of audiences, has supported goals for sustainable development and green growth in Colombia.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 29 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper shows how images are capable of shedding light on ancient ethnobotanical practices. By reading visual evidence as historical documents, we can track continuities and disruptions in the uses of plants and rediscover forgotten ethnobotanical practices.
Paper long abstract:
This research analyses watercolour, engravings and photographs produced in Colombian from 1820 until the 1940s and “read” them as documents capable of shedding light on ancient ethnobotanical practices. Drawing on digitalised resources, this research reinterrogates the graphical outcomes of the “Expedición Corográfica”. This expedition was an early recognition of the natural resources within the Colombian borders, and it produced a detailed set of watercolours depicting people, customs and landscapes. Additionally, this research explores watercolours and engravings produced by nineteenth-century travellers, many of whose were plant hunters, scientists, or politicians who created images devoted to illustrating their travel diaries, usually published in Europe. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the use of photography rapidly spread across Colombia. This new technique changed the visual narrative of the country. This research also analyses the photographic evidence from an ethnobotanical perspective, emphasising this technique's new graphic possibilities. The use of images reveals how until recently, Colombian material culture intensely relied on particular ethnobotanical knowledge not always present in written documents. The use of images, then, can help track continuities and disruptions in the uses of plants, and equally important, can be used to study the disappearance of botanical knowledge, eventually contributing to the reintroduction of forgotten ethnobotanical practices.
Paper short abstract:
The botanical collections and journals of José Cuatrecasas, a renowned botanist in Colombian history, hold valuable ethnobotanical knowledge of indigenous tribes for this country. To safeguard this information, we have been digitising his archives and present here some poorly documented plant uses.
Paper long abstract:
José Cuatrecasas Arumí (1903-1996) was one of the most important botanists in the history of Colombia. He published 2,936 names of plants, including 939 basionyms, 24 genera and 2 tribes, in a total of 89 families. In addition to his 263 publications, Cuatrecasas left as a legacy more than 30,000 plant specimens and 20,000 photographs, the product of his expeditions between 1932 and 1981 to numerous places in all regions of the country. He was one of the pioneers in exploring the flora of the Andean páramos, and he became one of the greatest experts in this ecosystem. His proposal for a general classification of Colombian vegetation is still used as a reference. In his travels, Cuatrecasas also met various indigenous ethnic groups, named by him as Carijonas, Cholos, Cochas (Kametzá), Cofanes, Cubeos, Emberas, Guananos, Guayaberos, Inganos, Kogis, Paeces, Tucanos, Tunebos, Uitotos and Yurutíes. His explorations were carefully described in his 37 travel diaries and notebooks, in which he meticulously jotted down details from day to day, such as the indigenous names of plants he collected, and their ethnobotanical uses. This knowledge, however, only rests on these documents. Since 2005, a biographical study of Cuatrecasas has been carried out based on the archives of the Smithsonian Institution and an exhaustive review of data repositories and their publications. This information is being included in the Useful Plants of Colombia's database. Some of the unpublished contributions of Cuatrecasas to the Ethnobotany of the indigenous peoples of Colombia are presented here.
Paper short abstract:
Triana combined his career as a diplomat with documenting the flora of Colombia in the XIX Century. His participation in the national expedition 'La Comisión Corográfica', allowed him to become an expert on useful plants and to receive the great prize of the Exposition Universelle de Paris in 1867.
Paper long abstract:
During the late XIXth Century, José Jerónimo Triana, one of the most prominent botanists for the country to date, traversed the nation and collected plants (8.000 vouchers) during the geographic expedition 'La Comisión Corográfica'. This project intended to strengthen the recognition of the United States of Colombia as a nation (as it was known at the time), and define production areas for promoting economic growth. The country entered to the international market in this period, through the exportation of goods mostly derived from plants: cinchona, rubber, coffee and tobacco. Nevertheless, new and diverse sources of exploitation were permanently needed. As a doctor, Triana was educated in healthcare and tried to find through plants several solutions for pain and diseases for that time. As a botanist, he travelled to France to improve his studies and proposed a comprehensive review of the flora of Colombia to the government, which led him to publish crucial contributions in collaboration with important European authors. Afterwards, being a diplomatic representative of Colombia in France, he managed to survive during politically instable periods by developing own-branded medicines (e.g. Triana syrup, José patch) derived from Colombian plants, and displaying some others in French exhibitions. A catalogue preserved in the National Archives of Colombia and France for the Exposition Universelle de Paris in 1867, reveals an important set of native useful plants with uses of economic importance, some now unknown. A comparison between past and current plant uses based in the 131 species displayed in this catalogue is presented in this talk.
Paper short abstract:
This is an in-depth review of the Colombian Items in the Economic Botany Collection of the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew. The review highlights the scientific interest of British institution in Colombia since the mid XIXth century all the way to modern ethnobotanical expeditions.
Paper long abstract:
This paper is an analysis of the Colombian items of the Economic Botany Collection in the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew (Kew). Three hundred and twenty-nine items from the Economic Botany collection were identified as having originated in Colombia. The specimens were categorized, photographed, and contextualized using historical and archival evidence. As a result of this investigation, we identified several different themes that highlight Britain's often complex scientific and economic interests in Colombia since the mid-XIXth century. It mostly sheds a unique light on how an imperial academic institution, such as Kew, has transformed its scientific approach with regions that are biodiverse and exist in the periphery of the empire. We can clearly observe how this approach has changed from actively identifying and cataloguing useful plants and plant-derived products to a more conservationist agenda interested in protecting and identifying endangered ecosystems and species. The collection also demonstrates the dynamic collaboration between local experts and Kew scientists which continues to this day. The data analysed here was uploaded to Kew's online catalogues including colplanta.org as part of the ColPlantA project and Kew's strategic output Plantsoftheworldonline.org (POWO).
Paper short abstract:
Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter, the 1891 publication of Albert Millican holds rich information about Colombian orchids. By drawing on this archival resource and digitising Kew's Colombian orchid illustrations, valuable scientific knowledge can be more widely disseminated.
Paper long abstract:
Albert Millican's Travels and Adventures of an Orchid Hunter published in 1891 provides a rich insight into orchid collecting and travelling through Colombia in the late nineteenth century. By using archival material held at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, such as Millican's publication, and digitising scientific illustrations of Colombian orchids that currently remain largely unavailable to researchers and wider audiences, valuable scientific knowledge of Colombian orchids is increased, such as conservation and ecological understanding. Kew's orchid illustration collection includes the works of renowned Orchidaceae botanists Eric Hágsater (1945-), C.A. Luer (1922-2019) and G.C.K. Dunsterville (1905-1988), as well as watercolours and nineteenth century lithographs of Colombian orchids printed in botanical magazines. The digitised illustrations and corresponding metadata are disseminated through Kew's online portal for the Useful Plants of Colombia project, highlighting the importance of archival botanical illustrations in furthering scientific knowledge.