TROPICAL FOREST HEALERS AND HABITAT PREFERENCE

Tropical forests represent repositories of medical plant species and i ndigenous ethnomedical knowledge. These biotic and cognitive resources are threatened by forest removal and culture change. It has, however, yet to be demonstrated quantitatively that tropical pharmacopoeias ar e concentrated in primary as opposed to disturbed forests, nor that fo lk ethnomedical knowledge is disappearing. I examined these questions by means of a useful species enumeration of 1-hectare primary and seco ndary forest plots, and a survey of the regional plant pharmacopoeia o f the Atlantic forests of Bahia, Brazil, a region that has witnessed s ignificant human and biological modification. Healers demonstrated a s trong preference for disturbed over primary forest. Second growth fore st plots yielded 2.7 times the number of medicinal species identified in primary forest plots. The, regional survey likewise elicited an eth noflora characterized by herbaceous, weedy, cultivated and exotic taxa . These results may reflect the availability and intrinsic medicinal v alue of disturbance species, as roell as the increasing rarity of the region's primary forests. They may also represent the long term outcom e of culture change, cognitive erosion, and reformulation of the regio n's perceived healing flora.