Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Forest as Stronghold of Local Ecological Practice: Currently Used Wild Food Plants in Polesia, Northern Ukraine

  • Published:
Economic Botany Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Local ecological practice (LEP, e.g., the everyday practice of collecting and using plants, including wild food plants) is shaped by nature (available local resources) and culture (local perceptions and knowledge on their usability), including a multitude of factors, among which language and geographical or cultural separation have been found to play crucial roles in affecting biocultural diversity. Also, proximity to the forest has been shown to increase the use of plants. We conducted ethnobotanical fieldwork within eastern and western regions of Ukrainian Polesia, during which we interviewed 118 people. Through semi-structured interviews, we recorded the distribution of the current uses of 70 wild food taxa. The analysis of use records revealed homogeneous distribution of use despite the geographical distance and different spoken dialects; however, we were able to single out the highly sylvan region of eastern Polesia as the area with highest biocultural diversity for the use of wild food plants. The results suggest that in the context of the overall homogenization of local ecological knowledge, the continued existence of unintended contact with nature through living and working in the forest may be the primary factor maintaining the broader LEP in the sylvan area of eastern Polesia.

Місцева екологічна практика (MЕП, що включає повсякденну практику збору та використання дикорослих рослин у їжу) формується природою (місцевими ресурсами) та культурою (місцеві знання про їх використання), що включає безліч чинників, серед яких мова та географічне або культурне відокремлення відіграють вирішальну роль у впливі на біокультурне різноманіття. Також показано, що близькість до лісу збільшує використання рослин. Ми проводили етноботанічні польові роботи у двох областях Українського Полісся, в ході яких ми провели інтерв’ю з 118 людьми. За допомогою напівструктурованих інтерв’ю ми задокументували поточне використання 70 таксонів дикорослих рослин у їжу. Аналіз записів про вживання свідчить про однорідний розподіл використання, незважаючи на географічне розташування та різні розмовні діалекти; однак, ми змогли виділити лісистий регіон Східного Полісся як територію з найвищим біокультурним різноманіттям використання дикорослих рослин уїжу. Результати свідчать, що в контексті загальної гомогенізації місцевих екологічних знань, продовження існування контакту з природою живучи та працюючи в лісі може бути основним чинником, який підтримує ширшу MЕПу в лісовій зоні Східного Полісся.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Literature Cited

  • Barthel, S., J. Parker, C. Folke, and J. Colding. 2014. Urban gardens: Pockets of social-ecological memory. In: Greening in the red zone, eds. K. G. Tidball and M. E. Krasny, 145–158. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Bellia, G. and A. Pieroni. 2015. Isolated, but transnational: The glocal nature of Waldensian ethnobotany, Western Alps, NW Italy. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 11:37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blades, M. 2000. Functional foods or nutraceuticals. Nutrition and Food Science 30:73–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Broegaard, R. B., L. V. Rasmussen, N. Dawson, O. Mertz, T. Vongvisouk, and K. Grogan. 2017. Wild food collection and nutrition under commercial agriculture expansion in agriculture-forest landscapes. Forest Policy and Economics 84:92–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bussmann, R. W., N. Y. P. Zambrana, S. Sikharulidze, Z. Kikvidze, D. Kikodze, D. Tchelidze, M. Khutsishvili, K. Batsatsashvili, and R. E. Hart. 2016. A comparative ethnobotany of Khevsureti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Tusheti, Svaneti, and Racha-Lechkhumi, Republic of Georgia (Sakartvelo), Caucasus. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 12(1):43. doi https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-016-0110-2.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Cichoracki, P. 2014. Polonisation projects for Polesia and their delivery in 1921–1939. Acta Poloniae Historica 109:61–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dolina, K. and Ł. Łuczaj. 2014. Wild food plants used on the Dubrovnik coast (south-eastern Croatia). Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae 83(3):175–181.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dolina, K., M. Jug-Dujaković, Ł. Łuczaj, and I. Vitasović-Kosić. 2016. A century of changes in wild food plant use in coastal Croatia: The example of Krk and Poljica. Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae 85(3):3508. https://doi.org/10.5586/asbp.3508.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gómez-Baggethun, E. and V. Reyes-García. 2013. Reinterpreting change in traditional ecological knowledge. Human Ecology 41(4): 643–647.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • González-Tejero, M. R., M. Casares-Porcel, C. P. Sánchez-Rojas, J. M. Ramiro-Gutiérrez, J. Molero-Mesa, A. Pieroni, M. E. Giustic, E. Censoriic, C. de Pasqualec, A. Dellad, D. Paraskeva-Hadijchambid, A. Hadjichambisd, Z. Houmanie, M. El-Demerdashf, M. El-Zayatf, M. Hmamouchig, and S. El Johrig. 2008. Medicinal plants in the Mediterranean area: Synthesis of the results of the Project Rubia. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 116:341–357.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernández-Morcillo, M., J. Hoberg, E. Oteros-Rozas, T. Plieninger, E. Gómez-Baggethun, and V. Reyes-García. 2014. Traditional ecological knowledge in Europe: Status quo and insights for the environmental policy agenda. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 56:3–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • ISE (International Society of Ethnobiology). 2008. The ISE Code of Ethics. http://www.ethnobiology.net/what-we-do/core-programs/ise-ethics-program/code-of-ethics/ (30 November 2017).

  • Kalle, R. and R. Sõukand. 2016. Current and remembered past uses of wild food plants in Saaremaa, Estonia: Changes in the context of unlearning debt. Economic Botany 70(3):235–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kubijovyč, V., I. Stebelsky, and I. Sydoruk-Pauls. 1993 Polisia. Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine. http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CP%5CO%5CPolisia.htm (1 December 2018).

  • Kujawska, M., Ł. Łuczaj, and J. Typek. 2015. Fischer’s lexicon of Slavic beliefs and customs: A previously unknown contribution to the ethnobotany of Ukraine and Poland. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 11:85. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-015-0073-8.

  • Łuczaj, Ł. 2008. Dzikie rośliny jadalne używane w okresach niedoboru żywności we wschodniej części Karpat (powiaty Krosno, Sanok, Lesko, Nadwórna, Kosów i Kołomyja) według ankiety szkolnej z 1934 roku. In: Dzikie rośliny jadalne–zapomniany potencjał przyrody Mat. konf. Przemyśl-Bolestraszyce 13 września 2007, ed. by Ł. Łuczaj, 161–181. Bolestraszyce: Arboretum i Zakład Fizjografii w Bolestraszycace.

  • Łuczaj, Ł. and K. Dolina. 2015. A hundred years of change in wild vegetable use in southern Herzegovina. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 166:297–304.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Łuczaj, Ł., P. Köhler, E. Pirożnikow, M. Graniszewska, A. Pieroni, and T. Gervasi. 2013. Wild edible plants of Belarus: From Rostafiński’s questionnaire of 1883 to the present. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 9(1):21. https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-9-21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Łuczaj, Ł., K. Stawarczyk, T. Kosiek, M. Pietras, and A. Kujawa. 2015. Wild food plants and fungi used by Ukrainians in the western part of the Maramureş region in Romania. Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae 84:339–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maffi, L. 2005. Linguistic, cultural and biological diversity. Annual Review of Anthropology 29:599–617.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maffi, L. and E. Woodley. 2012. Biocultural diversity conservation: A global sourcebook. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Maseko, H., C. M. Shackleton, J. Nagoli, and D. Pullanikkatil. 2017. Children and wild foods in the context of deforestation in rural Malawi. Human Ecology 45(6):795–807.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • McMahon, M. 2013. What food is to be kept safe and for whom? Food-safety governance in an unsafe food system. Laws 2(4):401–427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moszyński, K. 1928. Polesie Wschodnie; materjały etnograficzne z wschodniej części b. powiatu mozyrskiego oraz z powiatu rzeczyckiego. Warszawa: Kasa Mianowskiego.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pieroni, A. and C. L. Quave. 2005. Traditional pharmacopoeias and medicines among Albanians and Italians in Southern Italy: A comparison. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 101:258–270.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pieroni, A. and R. Soukand. 2017. Are borders more important than geographical distance? The wild food ethnobotany of the Boykos and its overlap with that of the Bukovinian Hutsuls in Western Ukraine. Journal of Ethnobiology 37(2):326–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pieroni, A., M. E. Giusti, and C. L. Quave. 2011. Cross-cultural ethnobiology in the Western Balkans: Medical ethnobotany and ethnozoology among Albanians and Serbs in the Pešter Plateau, Sandžak, South-Western Serbia. Human Ecology 39:333–349.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pieroni, A., R. Sõukand, H. I. M Amin, H. Zahir, and T. Kukk. 2018. Celebrating multi-religious co-existence in Central Kurdistan: The bio-culturally diverse traditional gathering of wild vegetables among Yazidis, Assyrians, and Muslim Kurds. Human Ecology 46(2):217–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quave, C. L. and A. Pieroni. 2015. A reservoir of ethnobotanical knowledge informs resilient food security and health strategies in the Balkans. Nature Plants 1:14021.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ravi Rajan, S. 1998. Foresters and the politics of colonial agroecology: The case of shifting cultivation and soil erosion, 1920–1950. Studies in History 14(2):217–236.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Redžić, S. and J. Ferrier. 2014. The use of wild plants for human nutrition during a war: Eastern Bosnia (Western Balkans). In: Ethnobotany and biocultural diversities in the Balkans, eds. A. Pieroni and C. L. Quave, 149–182. New York: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., V. Vadez, T. Huanca, W. R. Leonard, and T. McDade. 2007. Economic development and local ecological knowledge: A deadlock? Quantitative research from a native Amazonian society. Human Ecology 35(3):371–377.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyes-García, V., G. Menendez-Baceta, L. Aceituno-Mata, R. Acosta-Naranjo, L. Calvet-Mir, P. Domínguez, T. Garnatje, E. Gómez-Baggethun, M. Molina-Bustamante, M. Molina, and R. Rodríguez-Franco. 2015. From famine foods to delicatessen: Interpreting trends in the use of wild edible plants through cultural ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 120:303–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serrasolses, G., L. Calvet-Mir, E. Carrió, U. D’Ambrosio, T. Garnatje, M. Parada, J. Vallès, and V. Reyes-García. 2016. A matter of taste: Local explanations for the consumption of wild food plants in the Catalan Pyrenees and the Balearic Islands. Economic Botany 70:176–189.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sõukand, R. and A. Pieroni. 2016. The importance of a border: Medical, veterinary, and wild food ethnobotany of the Hutsuls living on the Romanian and Ukrainian sides of Bukovina. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 185:17–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sõukand, R., Y. Hrynevich, I. Vasilyeva, J. Prakofjewa, Y. Vnukovich, J. Paciupa, A. Hlushko, Y. Knureva, Y. Litvinava, S. Vyskvarka, H. Silivonchyk, A. Paulava, M. Kõiva, and R. Kalle. 2017. Multi-functionality of the few: Current and past uses of wild plants for food and healing in Liubań region, Belarus. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 13:10. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-017-0139-x.

  • Stevens, P. F. 2015. Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, version 13. http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/ (6 August 2017).

  • Stryamets, N., M. Elbakidze, M. Ceuterick, P. Angelstam, and R. Axelsson. 2015. From economic survival to recreation: Contemporary uses of wild food and medicine in rural Sweden, Ukraine and NW Russia. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 11:53. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-015-0036-0.

  • The Plant List. 2013. http://www.theplantlist.org/ (15 September 2017).

  • Tutin, T., V. Heywood, N. Burges, D. Valentine, S. Walters, and D. Webb. 1964. Flora Europaea. Cambridge: University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vorstenbosch, T., I. de Zwarte, L. Duistermaat, and T. van Andel. 2017. Famine food of vegetal origin consumed in the Netherlands during World War II. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 13: 63. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13002-017-0190-7.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Wolowyna, O., S. Plokhy, N. Levchuk, O. Rudnytskyi, P. Shevchuk, and A. Kovbasiuk. 2016. Regional variations of 1932–34 famine losses in Ukraine. Canadian Studies in Population 43(3–4):175–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Our special thanks, however, go to all the study participants from the various Polesia villages, who generously shared their knowledge.

Funding

The field study was financed in large part by research funds from the University of Gastronomic Sciences (Pollenzo, Italy), the Estonian Science Foundation Grant IUT22-5, and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies, CEES).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy

    Andrea Pieroni

  2. Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy

    Renata Sõukand

Authors
  1. Andrea Pieroni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Renata Sõukand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Renata Sõukand.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Pieroni, A., Sõukand, R. Forest as Stronghold of Local Ecological Practice: Currently Used Wild Food Plants in Polesia, Northern Ukraine. Econ Bot 72, 311–331 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-018-9425-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-018-9425-3

Key Words

Search

Navigation