Documenting and Preserving Indigenous Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Papua New Guinea—and Beyond

The researchers will work with the Arapesh community to collect ethnobotanical specimens identified according to both Western scientific classifications and indigenous systems, archiving them to make them accessible for scientific study. Indigenous peoples have unique classification systems for biocultural resources that may pick up on taxonomic subtleties that western scientists do not, potentially leading to new scientific understandings of species, sub-species, or other forms of genetic diversity. Indigenous knowledge of plants has the potential to offer solutions for local and global health and food security, bringing whole new paradigms of resiliency based on millennia of adaptation in the face of social and environmental change. 

Much of this invaluable knowledge is being lost in conjunction with the erosion of indigenous languages. Plants are not only valuable for their potential utility as food or drugs; they have significant and complex meanings and applications for broader societal and cultural survival and thriving. Dobrin and Huish share a commitment to preserving traditional environmental knowledge in ways that support the long-term viability and well-being of communities whose rich cultural knowledge of their ecosystems are currently disappearing. New Guinea is the most floristically rich island in the world, and our understanding of it is far from complete, with botanical species discovery by scientists showing no sign of leveling off.

Indigenous knowledge about plants, along with plant life itself, is currently under threat in PNG. People’s primary means of food production—including swidden gardening—has become precarious due to recent changes in weather patterns that make it difficult to predict when cleared lands can be burned for cultivation. Where level lands can be found and even temporary roads built deforestation quickly follows due to clear-cut logging and the establishment of monocrop plantations, such as oil palm which is extremely damaging to local ecosystems and landowners’ traditional livelihoods. Papua New Guineans’ knowledge about their natural environment is deteriorating due to a series of interrelated social transformations that have been underway for decades in PNG as a result of its “development”. There is increased reliance on the cash economy, which pulls people away from villages and into towns for work. Even when they grow up in the village, young people now spend their days in school instead of helping with in the daily activities (hunting, house building, fiber arts, etc.) through which traditional cultural knowledge was formerly transmitted. These traditional skills and the complex associated knowledge are what they have depended on for millennia to adapt to changes.