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The Belize Ethnobotany Reserve Project
As part of the project, local healers banded together to form an association to help conserve and teach traditional knowledge and to preserve Belize's plant diversity. One important result was the designation of a 6000-acre parcel of lowland forest as a reserve. Plans are being drawn up to help manage this reserve as a place where plants used in traditional medicine can be harvested and conserved. Another goal of this type of conservation unit, known as an ethno-biomedical forest reserve, is to determine how quickly different medicinal plants grow back after harvest. This would allow healers and reserve managers to determine the levels at which these plants can be sustainably extracted. Rain forests in Belize are facing growing threats from development and logging activities. By learning how to sustainably manage plant harvest, it may be possible to protect the biodiversity of forest reserves while providing healers and the Belize population with widely used traditional medicines.
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