Traditional Knowledge on Vegetation Recourse Use in Drylands of Iranshahr District, Sistan & Baluchestan Province, Southeastern Iran

Abdolbaset Ghorbani¹, Mahmoud Mosaddegh¹, Bahman Atamoradi², Mohammad Nohtani³

¹Traditional Medicine and Materia Medica Research Center
Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

²Natural Resource Management Office, Iranshahr

³Department of Watershed and Rang Management, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Zabol, Iran

*Corresponding Author: Abdolbaset Ghorbani
e-mail: bghorbani@itmrc.org

Abstract

Iranshahr District is located in Siastan & Baluchestan province, the second largest Provinces of Iran. It is one of the most undeveloped, desolated and poor regions of Iran. The study area is situated in Sahara-Sindian phytogeographical region with unique flora from other parts of Iran. Despite low precipitation, generally under 200mm, the flora is reach and many shruby species are found in this area which are mostly part of the shruby Sahara-Sindian elements, which extends from Sahara through Arabia to the Southern Pakistan. The most typical and commonest trees and bushes in this zone are different species of Acacia, Prosopis, Ziziphus, Tamarix, Otostegia, Lyceum, Calotropis, Rhazia and Nerium.

In the study are people mostly Baluch ethnicity and they speak Baluchi. They are mostly stockholders and in rural areas they live in tents, some kind of hammock or clay walled homes. They have retained their traditions and they live in a traditional style. In this survey traditional knowledge on the medicinal use of flora elements in Iranshahr district using ethnobotanical methods of data collection have been studied. Elderly people or traditional healers how had some knowledge on medicinal plants have been interviewed. Information on plants vernacular names, parts used, their uses and modes of preparation and administration have been recorded. In this survey, 34 species from 17 families have been recorded for their use in traditional medicine. The most common plant part for use was aerial parts and then leaves and fruits. However the medicinal ethno-flora of the area seems to be more diverse but because of 7 years of drought many species have been vanished from the area. Detailed and long term study on traditional resource use of plants will reveal more neglected and threatened species and will show how this people are dependent on their natural resources for their subsistence.