How the first published Indigenous ethnobotanist & elders recorded their people's medicinal knowledge

Hemerson Dantas dos Santos Pataxó HãHãHãi, the world's first published Indigenous ethnobotanist, documented 175 medicinal plants alongside Indigenous elders in Brazil's Caramuru/Paraguassu territory, with findings published in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine and samples preserved in an internationally registered herbarium.

The documented territory was illegally occupied by cattle farmers for decades; forest clearing has already eliminated some medicinal species irretrievably. Nevertheless, this is important work.