Within the framework of the project, “Strengthening ancestral knowledge through its use for the prevention of diseases transmitted by insect vectors and dietary patterns”, on December 5, 6 and 7 in Flores, Petén, Guatemala an exchange of knowledge between traditional therapists and academics on medicinal plants and food sovereignty was held.

Under the slogan ““Our place in the world is to be ourselves” (“Ser en el mundo, ser nosotros” in Spanish), the meeting represented a valuable opportunity for representatives of some twenty community organizations that promote traditional and indigenous knowledge about the medicinal and food plants of Mexico and Guatemala to meet with representatives of the academic world specialized in the flora of the Selva Maya region.

During the meeting, experiences of community seed banks, healing practices based on traditional floral medicine, as well as experiences of naturopathic pharmacies in urban centers with medicines created from active ingredients from the regional flora, were presented, which allowed to visualize the complementarity of knowledge between the participating organizations.

These dialogues made it possible to generate agreements regarding the implementation of some joint work activities, to which representatives of Belize would join, with the intention, for example, of obtaining a reference document regarding the medicinal properties of the flora of the second largest tropical forest massif in the American continent, all from a double perspective: bridging Western and traditional knowledge about it.

The project, which is being implemented by the Foundation for Conservation in Guatemala (FCG) and the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (USAC), is financed with funds from the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany (BMZ) through the Pandemic Prevention and Response One Health Global Programme (PPOH) of the Selva Maya region, that implements GIZ in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

Image credits:  ©GIZ/GabrielBerríos