Uso de plantas na etnoveterinária: Uma abordagem através da redundância utilitária

Abstract

Ethnovet medicine seeks to understand the practices of local populations for the prevention, treatment or cure of diseases in domestic animals. Local ecological knowledge (LEK), which involves practices and knowledge that populations pass on between generations, is the main way of accessing the use and selection of plants to treat diseases in domestic animals. In the Brazilian semi-arid region, several plants can be used to treat the same disease, a fact known as utilitarian redundancy, but little is known about the redundancy of diseases in Ethnovet. In this context, we sought to assess the utilitarian redundancy of ethnovet diseases in local populations in the Brazilian semi-arid region. Our hypothesis is that ethnovet diseases present distinct redundancies, highlighting the inflammation target with the highest utilitarian redundancy. To carry out the study, semi-structured questionnaires were applied in rural communities in the Cariri region of Paraíba. Respondents were selected using the snowball technique. 120 people were interviewed and a total of 374 citations were registered. Among the plant families cited, Fabaceae, Euphorbiaceae and Rubiaceae obtained the highest number of citations, as well as the species Heliotropium indicum, which was the most cited. The bark of the stem of the plants and the leaves were the most cited parts and soaking the bark was the most prominent method for the preparation of medicines. The disease that presented the highest degree of utilitarian redundancy was inflammation and the one with the lowest redundancy was breakage. All results contribute to a better understanding of the utilitarian redundancy of practices employed in Ethnovet and help to understand that there are more redundant illnesses and others that present a lower degree of utilitarian redundancy.