Making friends in the field: How to become an ethnobotanist. - A personal reflection

Abstract

The focus of ethnobiological studies, their methods and the participation of local counterparts in these have changed substantially during the last decades. From the scientific point of view, ethnobotanical research has gone from simple inventories or lists of useful plants to detailed quantitative studies, backed by solid methods and analysis. However, one of the changes that stands out most is the incorporation of the guidelines set forth in the Nagoya Protocol, which has allowed this science to develop research in which the participation of local counterparts is much more active, going from being only the sources of information to be the main actors developing the investigations, and to be only mentioned in the acknowledgments to be authors of the publications that are the product of the investigation. All this process has been an apprenticeship, that I personally reflect in the process that my training as an ethnobotanist has followed.