A socio-educational insights on a fern ethnobotanical survey at a local community adjacent to Wanagama educational forest, Yogyakarta

Abstract

Romdhoni H, Reginald Y, Nurhadi M, Octaviani R, Sedayu A. 2015. A socio-educational insights on a fern ethnobotanical survey at a local community adjacent to Wanagama educational forest, Yogyakarta. Pros Sem Nas Masy Biodiv Indon 1: 2044-2050. Despite vast ethnobotanical usage recorded worldwide, ferns are less utilized compared to another group of vascular plants. Correspondingly, on a local scale, traditional Indonesian communities tend to exploit ferns at a lower level compared to the spermatophytes. We conducted a survey in a local community adjacent to Wanagama Educational Forest, Gunungkidul, to understand whether similar pattern occurs and whether any sub-pattern may have connected to the socio-educational background of the community. We found among 23 fern species occurring in Wanagama, wild or cultivated, respondents understood both the identity and usage of 15 species. However, based on high degree of identity disagreement, inconsistency, and overlap, we believed that local knowledge may have been much lower than recorded. Interestingly, there is a tendency that the higher education the respondents hold, the less they comprehend fern ethnobotanical knowledge. Respondent occupations explained the high usage of ferns as animal fodder. Knowledge seems to accumulate along with the respondent age increment. Passive knowledge i. e. knowledge without being self-practiced was observed mostly within the category of medicine. Our survey validates that overlaps, disagreements, and inconsistencies among respondents upon the fern identity are indications of the very low use of ferns in this particular local community, as also may reflect other community with similar characteristics.