Ethnobiology

Ethnobiology is the multidisciplinary field of study of relationships among peoples, biota, and environments integrating many perspectives, from the social, biological, and medical sciences; along with application to conservation and sustainable development.

Paul Sillitoe wrote that:[2] Europeans not only sought to understand the new regions they intruded into but also were on the look-out for resources that they might profitably exploit, engaging in practices that today we should consider tantamount to biopiracy.

Roy Ellen commented that: At its earliest and most rudimentary, this comprised listing the names and uses of plants and animals in native non-Western or 'traditional' populations often in the context of salvage ethnography ...[ie] ethno-biology as the descriptive biological knowledge of 'primitive' peoples.

[16] The Society of Ethnobiology advises on its web page: Ethnobiology is a rapidly growing field of research, gaining professional, student, and public interest ... internationally Ethnobiology has come out from its place as an ancillary practice in the shadows of other core pursuits, to arise as a whole field of inquiry and research in its own right: taught within many tertiary institutions and educational programs around the world;[5] with its own methods manuals,[17] its own readers,[18] and its own textbooks[19] All societies make use of the biological world in which they are situated, but there are wide differences in use, informed by perceived need, available technology, and the culture's sense of morality and sustainability.

[citation needed] Ethnobiologists seek to share in these understandings, subject to ethical concerns regarding intellectual property and cultural appropriation.

[citation needed] Ethnoecology refers to an increasingly dominant 'ethnobiological' research paradigm focused, primarily, on documenting, describing, and understanding how other peoples perceive, manage, and use whole ecosystems.

Studies and writings within ethnobiology draw upon research from fields including archaeology, geography, linguistics, systematics, population biology, ecology, cultural anthropology, ethnography, pharmacology, nutrition, conservation, and sustainable development.