Etnobotani Perempuan dan Survey Keanekaragaman Hayati dalam Kerangka ICCAs

Published in 2025 by Working Group ICCAs Indonesia (WGII) and Yayasan Diakonia Pelangi Kasih, this study documents the ethnobotanical knowledge held by women in Bongkaras Village, North Sumatra, as part of a broader biodiversity survey conducted within the ICCA framework. The research fills a critical gap by foregrounding women — who have long been keepers of the field, forest, and medicinal gardens — as central actors in community conservation, rather than passive bystanders.

The study explores how local women identify, name, cultivate, harvest, and transmit knowledge about plants used for food, medicine, and ritual. It reveals a rich taxonomic system embedded in everyday life: knowledge not stored in books but lived through intergenerational practice. The researchers applied both participatory ethnobotanical methods and structured biodiversity transects, creating a hybrid scientific and community-generated dataset.

The findings demonstrate that women's botanical knowledge is not merely traditional lore but an active governance tool that informs conservation decisions within the community's ICCA. The book argues for integrating gender-sensitive approaches into biodiversity documentation, ICCA registration, and conservation planning, with implications for both national policy and global biodiversity commitments under the Kunming-Montreal framework.