Paper short abstract:

The claim of collective identity based on ethnobotanical knowledge will be analyzed as a process where biodiversity and traditional knowledge protection are intertwined with herbal medicines market demands, pharmaceutical research, local development, eco-tourism and sustainability concepts.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is an introduction to a case study on the construction of collective identity in a small village known as "Terra das Ervanárias" (Land of Herbology), on the surroundings of a Portuguese National Park (Serra d'Aire and Candeeiros).

The claim of tradition in the gathering of plants and herbs used in folk medicine and its marketing process by the local industry of herbal products will be framed as a strategy to insure the intellectual property of traditional knowledge, contextualized in the increasing demand for natural therapies.

That claim is also an attempt to involve local subjects in the development of "legitimate" knowledge about a native species of sage (Salvia) in Serra d'Aire and Candeeiros which is potentially useful for drug development for Alzheimer's therapy.

Underlying these processes are the management of communal lands (baldios) and the establishment of a management council (2006), that has assumed promoting the Land of Herbology as one of its main projects, in order to restore and protect the traditional knowledge as a strategy for local development. This project involves the certification of specific qualities of the plants that grow there spontaneously which, along with the ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological knowledge, the local industry of herbal products and the research on Salvia conducted by the College of Agriculture of Santarém, intends mainly to promote eco-tourism.