Format: ORAL

Alex C. McAlvay1

1 The New York Botanical Garden, New York, U.S.A

Ethnobotany, like many fields, was shaped by early Western imperial efforts to colonize people and lands around the world and understand and extract natural resources. Over the last several decades, many ethnobotanists have worked to re-envision the goals of ethnobotany as an anti-colonial science which supports local communities rights to self-determination. Three case studies will be presented that seek to support food, territory, and data sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and local communities as well as the challenges faced and lessons learned. First, in many parts of the world, traditional, climate-resilient crops and cropping practices are being replaced with high-input, introduced grains promoted by international and governmental policies. I share work to revitalize traditional grain mixtures in Ethiopia that are being discouraged by agricultural policy. Second, Globally, Indigenous Peoples have shaped landscapes through centuries or millennia of plant stewardship. In the Pacific Northwest of North America, territorial rights can be tied to laws based on misconceptions about traditional land stewardship. I share examples from land-rights cases that incorporate ethnobotany as evidence. Finally, herbarium specimens can contain not only biological data, but also cultural datanotes on local names and uses. In many cases this data was collected without formal approval from communities and/or before Free Prior Informed Consent became standard. I share work by a global consortium of herbaria working to reunite this data with source communities, and explore options for community control of their data. Reflections will be presented on the social, legal, and ethical complexities involved in these cases as well as faced by contemporary ethnobotanists in general.