The importance of the continuity of practice: Ethnobotany of Kihnu island (Estonia) from 1937 to 2021

Abstract

Local knowledge is highly endangered in the modern world, and therefore, it is important to understand the factors contributing to the preservation of biocultural diversity. Three major aspects were identified: continuity of the practice, support for the ritual related to the use, and external acknowledgment of the local use by an authoritative source. Moreover, strong centralization of current local knowledge in institutionalized domains (ethnomedicine) was identified, which has excluded unacknowledged or officially unapproved local knowledge from circulation. The inclusion of local ecological knowledge as a practice in school curricula and the highlighting of local historical uses in herbals and popularizing activities are recommended. Plant use in local communities changes over time along with changing social, political, economic, and environmental conditions. The study aimed to understand the factors influencing the continuity of certain interactions between plants and people. To understand the drivers of resilience of the use of local flora, the historical (1930s) and current (2021) uses of plants on the small island of Kihnu in Estonia were compared, and the resilient uses were identified. Use resilience depended on the use domain. While the ethnoveterinary domain completely disappeared, the most resilient uses were those related to ritual (religious) activities, with 75% being retained (6 of 8 taxa used historically). This was followed by the wild food plant domain, in which 66% of taxa (21 of 32) have been retained, along with the highest proportion of taxa‐use combinations (57%, 21 of 37). Historically the largest domain, ethnomedicine showed low resilience: 18 of 73 taxa have been retained, with only eight emic (or local) plant uses (PU). Moreover, we observed that 75% of the retained emic PU (6 out of 8) were supported by a centralized medical system, while this proportion was 87% for current uses and only 15% for interrupted uses that were promoted or acknowledged in centralized herbals. As the most important aspects influencing the resilience of plant use are the continuity of practice, ritualization, and external support for usage, the inclusion of local ecological knowledge as a practice in school curricula and the highlighting of local historical uses in herbals and popularizing activities are strongly recommended.