Format: ORAL

J.Esteban Hernndez-Bermejo

Department of Forestry Engineering, Córdoba University, Córdoba, Spain

The author has participated in several initiatives in Spain and Latin America related to the inventory of knowledge associated with bio- and agro-diversity, always working with historical documentation, not only with that contained in textual sources but also from graphic and archaeobotanical sources. These include its participation in the IECTB and IECTBA (Spanish inventories of traditional knowledge associated with bio and agrodiversity), the FAFA (Agricultural and Forest Flora of al-Andalus), the CultIVA-CYTED network for the recovery of NUS (neglected and underutilized species) or various projects for the recovery and management of cultural landscapes in archaeological sites such as the Alhambra and Generalife or Medina Azahara in Andalusia (Spain) or the Jesuit reductions in the missionary-Guarani area. This experience demonstrates the interest of retrospective research in Historical Ethnobotany and its usefulness in recovering forgotten crops, phytotherapeutic knowledge, forms of agro-food consumption and forest uses that are once again of interest today in the fight against hunger, poverty and especially as elements of adaptation and even mitigation of climate change. They also make it possible to document the traditional value of many of these crops within a historical process of germplasm transfer between cultures, countries, and continents, turning apparent innovations subject to new codes of germplasm exchange and associated knowledge into archaeophytes, requiring a new analysis of the rights and sovereignty of peoples over part of their genetic and ethnobiological heritage. Some examples are examined such as the case of the argan tree [Argania spinosa (L.) Skeels] and its current potential cultivation in countries outside its natural range.