Ethnobotanical Surve y and Habitat Ma pping of Medicinal Pla nts and It s Imp lication on Conservation Manage ment in Ru ral Kwara C ommunities

Abstract

Background: In Nigeria, medicinal plants are now being threatened due to increased urbanization, land clearing for farming and over harvesting from their natural habitats. As such, if such trends continue, some of these medicinal plants might increasingly become not available and in the extreme circumstance be faced with extinction. Methods A n epidemiological descriptive f ield survey that employed a carefully st ructured, closed ended, interviewer administered, paper based questionnaire de signed to capture information on the use of medicinal plants as antimalarial and for management of other associated illnesses W e also employed Global Positioning System (Garmin etrex 75) to captures the geo coordinates of previously identified medicinal plants across the footpath transect at 20 m intervals . A total of twenty one (2 1 ) medicinal plant species were surveyed across five communities with varying numbers per locations. Result s Out of the nine (9) identified traditional healers across the communities, all claimed to have used at least one or combinations of these plants for treatment of malaria. An image classification performed through land cover land use map of the s tudy area revealed six classes: swamp /water bodies, river valley, savanna woodland, degraded woodland, grassland and settlements cluster . Mostthreatened species such as Aristolochia ringes , Mucuna prurins , Azadirachta indica , Kigelia africana , Citrus lim on , Ludwigia suffruticosa , Parkia biglobosa , and Picralima nitida are those found in Malete KWASU campus axis in the degraded woodland and settlement cluster classes. This is due to the high level of forest destruction in the area as a result of growing st udent population and massive constructions of students’ hostel. We reported that about 60% of original plant cover has been lost between 2005 and 2015. It was observed that availability of surface water bodies played a crucial role in influencing the distr ibution of identified medicinal plants. The nearest neighbour analysis gave a nearest neighbour index of 0.695 at p=0.000003 and z score of 4.70314. This shows that the observed random distribution of medicinal plants in the study area was statistically s ignificant. It has been observed that random patterns are usually associated with natural occurrences. The random spatial pattern confirms that these plants have not yet been affected by anthropogenic activities and hence need to be conserved there in the wild. Conclusion: There is need to leverage on conservation of medicinal plants for treating malaria in their natural habitats. Also, the need to ensure sustainable harvesting and other socio ecological process to ensure these are not threatened to the ex treme case of extinction in these communities. In the view of the above, we recommend that KWASU Malete campus axis b e monitored proper urban planning initiatives implemented and ensure cultivation and preservation of these plants are incorporated into th e greening efforts of the Kwara state government in this area.