Print PageThis paper highlights on ethno botanical studies conducted in Langtang National Park and its buffer zone (LNP-BZ), Central Nepal in August/Sep 2008. Using the local herbs to cure patients by the traditional healers is very common and important practice in the rural hilly regions of Nepal. The questions of this study are what are the most common and important medicinal plants of the study area? How the traditional healers are using local herbs to cure the patients? What is the socioeconomic and professional status of the local healers? What are the prevalent diseases of the study area? And, what is the efficiency of using local herbs to cure these diseases? The field study and questionnaire survey were carried out to identify the important medicinal plants and to observe the traditional practices on locally available medicinal plants.
Results/Conclusions
The study revealed more than 83 diseases prevalent on the study area, which were cured by the local traditional healers using locally available medicinal plants (54 species). Among 83 diseases, more than 65% were found to be cured within one week. The plant species are in use since a long time. Treatment of the most common disease of study area, cough & cold, involved the use of 27 species (17 species for cough & 10 species for cold), while 14 species were used in fever, 10 species in wounds and 15 species were used as tonic. The local healers, who use the traditional knowledge descended from their ancestors, have been using the locally available medicinal plants very effectively to cure the patients. However, the socio-economic status of the local healers was not satisfactory. The illegal collection and trade of important medicinal plants was found very common on the study area.
