This project continues the existing support for research in Mexico of several cultural anthropologists from the University of California-Berkeley. The project studies the medical and pharmacological ethnobotanical knowledge of a group of Mayan Indians living in the state of Chiapas, Mexico. The project will prepare an encyclopedia of plants with their medicinal and pharmacological properties and local customary uses, as well as herbarium collections in Mexico and in the USA. This project is important because the traditional knowledge of Indian peoples is a valuable part of our human biodiversity resources. By analyzing these local communities' ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological knowledge, and matching that knowledge with biological assays of the biochemical properties of the plants, this project will add to our understanding of the nature of traditional ethnobotanical knowledge.
