Showing posts with label ethnobiology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethnobiology. Show all posts

Sunday, March 12, 2017

What is a botanist?

Cory Whitney

The members of the Society of Economic Botany (SEB) student board were asked to name the things that make up a Botanist. I could only think of this:

I suppose that a botanist is a particularly curious member of Homo sapiens sapiens that seeks to fill the void of existential lack and wonder that are the bi-product of consciousness (i.e. tries to understand). In particular the botanist studies the structure, functions, and uses of plants.

Botanist
From Greek botanismós
A specialist in botany.

Botany
From French botanique and Greek botanikos and botanē ‘plant’
The science of plants,
a branch of biology.

Biology
The study of living organisms
From German, via French from Greek bios ‘life’.

Life
The formation of RNA and DNA,
to grow, reproduce, change and die,
known only to occur on Earth.

Earth
A blue orb, third planet from the sun in the Sol solar system,
Orion arm of the Milky Way, Virgo cluster,
13.7 billion years after big bang, Laniakea Universe.

Find some of our publications for more suspenseful reading about exploration in botany:


References

  1. Gebauer, J., Whitney, C. W., and Tabuti, J. R. S., 2016. First record of baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) in Uganda, Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution, 63(5), 755-762. 
  2. Whitney, C. W., 2016. Adventures in Botany, Plants & People; Society for Econ. Bot. Newsletter, 30, 10.
  3. Whitney, C. W., Gebauer, J., and Anderson, M., 2012. A Survey of Wild Collection and Cultivation of Indigenous Species in Iceland, Hum. Ecol., 40, 781-787.
  4. Whitney, C. W., and Gebauer, J., 2014. Homegardens in Uganda: Diversity and Potential, Building Organic Bridges. Proceedings of the 4th ISOFAR Scientific Conference at the Organic World Congress 2014 in Istanbul, Turkey, Thuenen Report 20, 1115-1118.
  5. Whitney, C. W., Vang Sin, M. M. V., Lê Hồng, G., Vu Van, C., Barber, K., and Tran Thi, L., 2014. Conservation and Ethnobotanical Knowledge of a Hmong Community in Long Lan, Luang Prabang, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Ethnobotany Research and Applications, 12, 643-658.
  6. Whitney, C. W., Vang, S. M., Lê Hồng, G., Can, V. V., Barber, K., and Lanh, T. T., 2016. Learning with elders; human ecology and ethnobotany explorations in northern and central Vietnam, Human Organization, 75(1), 71-86.

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Here is a regularly updated list of other things Cory writes

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Ethnobiology and Conservation

Conservation through utilization. 

Work needs to be done that looks at ways to improve the relationship of people to nature through efficient and sustainable use of a diversity of species from native habitats. - I think of it as 'use it or lose it'. I also know that 'we will not fight for what we do not love' and that the cultural importance of native species has lead to much of the activism for environmental conservation. 

Work still needs to be done to find out how ethnobiology can best help with the maintenance of indigenous knowledge of native species, and what the challenges and benefits of this cooperation are. 

Here is a poem about work from Mary Oliver:


My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.