NRES 700

NRES 715

UNIT 1 Section A

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Introduction

Humans have four basic necessities in life: food, clothing, shelter, and fuel, most of which are obtained from plant resources. Current human society is becoming increasingly estranged from the natural world. As the human population continues to expand, more and more people will live in urbanized setting where food is purchased from supermarkets, and medicines are obtained from pharmacies. People in large urban areas often spend over 90% of their time indoors and have little contact with nature. Human dependence on nature and on plant resources is easily forgotten. It is easy to visualize how this disconnectedness to nature can lead to indifference towards the disappearance of nature and its resources, particularly, plant resources. However, urbanized or not, humans still require the basic necessities of life. We still depend on plants to provide us with oxygen to breathe; to capture the solar energy that ultimately provide us with the energy in form of food; and to provide us with fiber and shelter. Read # (required) Tropical forest in our daily lives.

The area of study that deals specifically with relationships between people and plants is ethnobotany. Ethno means "people" or "cultural group" and botany means "the study of plants." Richard Evan Schultes, one of the modern fathers of ethnobotany, defined ethnobotany as "the study of human evaluation and manipulation of plant materials, substances, and phenomenon, including relevant concepts, in primitive or unlettered societies." Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary approach involving botany, anthropology, linguistic, history, and biochemistry. Today, ethnobotany includes economic botany, sustainable harvesting, ethics and intellectual property rights, and as a voice for the cultures where the field work is done. Read # (required) An Introduction to Ethnobotany.

If you would like more general information on ethnobotany, click on and visit the following optional links: The Food Timeline; Ethnobotanical Leaflets

Timeline from the view of a botanist. Plant Trivia Timeline

Ethnobotanical Classroom Activities

After completing Unit I. Section A, please click on Section B.

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# - Represents a required reading