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HerbalEGram: Volume 6, Number 7, July 2009
Society for Economic Botany Holds 50th Anniversary
Meeting and Conference
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The 50th anniversary meeting of the Society for Economic Botany (SEB) was held in the beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina, from May 31 to June 4. The magnolia trees were in full bloom, to the enjoyment of conference attendees at the College of Charleston, host of the meeting. SEB past-president John Rashford, professor of anthropology at the College of Charleston, graciously led the event, which covered a wide variety of ethnobotanical topics ranging from contemporary utilization of medicinal and food plants to assessments of species found in historical texts.
The 2009 Symposium on African Ethnobotany in the Americas, which featured papers that focused on the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and South America, examined the influence of migration on people/plant relations, and it did so in the context of the extraordinary worldwide movement of people and plants that was an essential part of the early development of the now globally interdependent way of life. This symposium was especially fitting for Charleston, an historic port city that has played an important part in the early development of colonial plantation systems in the Americas that were based on African labor.
The keynote speech was given by world-renowned botanist Sir Ghillean T. Prance, former director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew (in the UK) and currently associated with the Eden Project (www.edenproject.com). He provided a personal history of the first 50 years of SEB.
One of the annual highlights of the conference is the speech given by the Distinguished Economic Botanist (DEB). The honor this year was shared by the late Nina L. Etkin, PhD, of the University of Hawaii—a highly respected medical anthropologist and author of numerous books and academic articles on the roles of food and herbal medicines in society—and Michael J. Balick, PhD, director and philecology curator at The Institute for Economic Botany of The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG). (Dr. Balick has been an active member of the American Botanical Council Board of Trustees since 1996.* More information on Dr. Balick can be found in several articles from past issues of HerbalGram, as well as an article in the latest issue [82].)1
Dr. Etkin passed away in January of this year, a great loss to the anthropology and ethnobotany communities.2 At the closing night’s dinner an inspirational tribute was given to her by Lisa Gollin, PhD, one of Etkin’s doctoral students. (Ms. Gollin wrote an article in HerbalGram 29 in 1994 on Jammu, the traditional herbal medicine of Indonesia.3) Dr. Etkin’s husband, Paul Ross, accepted the award on her behalf, noting that she had completed several books and numerous scientific papers since being diagnosed with lung cancer 5 years earlier. He had read to her the letter from SEB officially notifying her of her having been chosen DEB about one week prior to her passing. (As part of this meeting, numerous friends and colleagues of Dr. Etkin’s held a round-table discussion on her enormous intellectual and scholarly contributions to medical anthropology and ethnobotany.)
Michael Balick’s DEB banquet address was replete with his typical humility, focusing on the many people who have collaborated with him in his thus-far distinguished career as an ethnobotanist. He recalled his work with Dr. Rosita Arvigo and Don Elijio Panti, a traditional Maya H’men (healer-priest) in Belize and also highlighted his recent work on the Pacific Micronesia island of Pohnpei, where he and 32 other colleagues have just completed a book on the ethnobotany of this small island and its rich flora of endemic plant species. Notably, the book, Ethnobotany of Pohnpei: Plants, People and Island Culture (University of Hawai’i Press, 2009), lists nearly 200 collaborators whom he refers to as local experts, with the copyright being assigned directly to the Mwoalen Wahu Ileilehn Pohnpei (The Pohnpei Council of Traditional Leaders), who directed the project from its beginning. As he pointed out, this formal declaration of ownership of the information contained within the book establishes the legal designation of “prior art” and “prior knowledge,” thus protecting the property rights of the material collected as part of this project. In thanking his mentors, he reminded the audience of Ben Franklin’s concept of “paying forward,” mentoring the next generation as recompense for the kindnesses Balick had been shown in his educational life by luminaries that have included the late Richard Evans Schultes, PhD, and Sir Ghillean T. Prance, PhD.
The Society granted its Presidential Award to Daniel E. Moerman, PhD, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Michigan--Dearborn and author of the magnum opus Native American Ethnobotany (Timber Press, 1998), in recognition of his outstanding contributions to SEB as editor of Economic Botany for the past 5 years. Also, the Charles B. Heiser Jr. Mentor Award was given to Hugh Popenoe, PhD, professor emeritus at the University of Florida, for his excellence in stimulating and mentoring his students. Outgoing SEB president James S. Miller, PhD, dean of science at the NYBG, passed the gavel to the new president Eve Emshwiller, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin.
A featured theme of the conference was “African Ethnobotany in the Americas.” In addition to its symposium focus on the ethnobotany of the African diaspora of the Americas, there were several other ethnobotanical studies of African medicinal and food plants in situ. Several non-African attendees commented that they had learned many new insights and perspectives into the cultures and contributions of Africans with respect to their history, uses of plants for food, fiber and medicine, as well as some of the lasting contributions they made to mainstream cuisine.
Of course, there were numerous other subjects covered by conference speakers. An entire morning was devoted to “Religion and the Arts” (i.e., the religious and aesthetic uses of plants in Africa and South America, as well as in other parts of the world). Also included were the various fiber, food and medicinal uses of many imported African and adapted native plants of the East Coast of the Western Hemisphere. This aspect of the symposium theme was also explored in an art exhibition at the College of Charleston’s Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture organized by Sarah Khan, PhD, and Henry Drewal, titled Tasting Cultures: The Art of African American Foodways.
A short list of other oral presentations include a presentation on the pioneering botanical work of French botanist André Michaux in Eastern North America in the late 1700s; an overview of medicinal plant use by Afro-Mexicans; the extensive use and cultural value of coca (Erythroxylum coca) in Bolivia; field work in developing sustainable cultivation of black cohosh (Actaea racemosa, syn. Cimicifuga racemosa); progress in establishing a medicinal plant germplasm repository (a seed bank) in North Carolina; and many more topics.
All of the conference abstracts—both oral presentations and posters—as well as the keynote speech by Dr. Prance, are available online via the SEB website, here.
SEB is a professional organization of agronomists, botanists, ethnobotanists, ethnonutritionists, anthropologists, and many others interested in plants of economic importance, and their past, present and future uses. Among other things, SEB produces an excellent journal, Economic Botany, which is worth reading for anyone interested in medicinal plants from an ethnobotanical and ethnoecological perspective. Membership information can be found on the SEB website. Next year’s SEB conference will be held in the beautiful colonial city of Xalapa, Mexico, just outside of Vera Cruz. More about SEB and next year’s conference is available at www.econbot.org. An article about SEB’s 50th anniversary appeared in HerbalGram 80.4
—Mark Blumenthal
* Several previous recipients of the DEB award have been members of the Board of Trustees of ABC: James A. Duke, Norman R. Farnsworth, and Varro E. Tyler. ABC also has among its Advisory Board several past-presidents of SEB (in addition to Balick, who is also past-president): Bradley C. Bennett, PhD, Paul A. Cox, PhD, W. Hardy Eshbaugh, PhD (also DEB in 2007), Beryl Simpson, PhD, and Timothy Johns, PhD.
References
1. Stafford L. Meet ABC board member Michael J. Balick: award-winning ethnobotanist and conservationist. HerbalGram. 2009;82:14-15.
2. Linder KS. Nina Etkin 1948-2009. HerbalGram 2009.82;75.
3. Gollin LX. Apotik Hidup: Indonesia's Living Apothecary. HerbalGram. 1994;29:10.
4. Cavaliere C. Society for Economic Botany Celebrates 50th Year. HerbalGram. 2008;80:20-21. |
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