Status: Ongoing
Traditional medicines and uses of plants in Northern boreal forests remain poorly understood in academia. Educators and students could benefit from greater knowledge of traditional plant uses. There are many, wide-reaching needs for exposure to traditional knowledge systems surrounding the uses of plants. For example, traditional uses of plants could alleviate some of the concern about food insecurity in the North. In addition, residents of the northern Boreal forests have used medicinal plants in traditional healthcare for thousands of years. This knowledge, largely shared by oral tradition, could be lost by cultural change without concerted effort to document and understand the many traditional uses of plants. The biodiversity crisis fueled by climate change and extensive habitat loss globally could also cause extinction of important plants used traditionally before their properties are fully understood or documented. This project seeks to document medicinal and traditional uses of common plants in southern Yukon. A student in the Renewable Resources Management program (Kimberly Koyczan) will lead this project that will begin with a comprehensive literature review of already documented traditional uses of local plants, their ranges, and conservation statuses. An objective is to compile all of this information into an open-access resource.
Partners and funders
- YukonU Scholarly Activity