Traditional botanical and landscape knowledge of the village community of Gunung Malang, Mount Halimun Salak National Park (MHSNP)

The people of Gunung Malang Village, Tenjolaya Subdistrict are traditional communities that have lived and spread for hundreds of years at the foot of Mount Salak, a buffer zone for MHSNP. Their livelihoods depend on farming and gathering forest products. The topography of Mount Halimun makes the area relatively low in biological resources. Likewise, the study of data or literature information related to research results is very rare. In fact, the MHSNP area has tremendous potential for research activities in various disciplines. The aim of this research is to reveal the traditional ecological knowledge and the use of plants by the community of Kampung Pasir Gaok, Gunung Malang Village in interacting with the environment around where they live in order to fulfill their daily needs. This research uses an exploratory method which is based on the emic and ethical approach. Ethnoecological and ethnobotany data collection was obtained through the Pebble Distribution Methods (PDM) method by scoring in a Focus Group Discussion (FGD). Analysis of the importance of each plant species related to local culture is carried out through the Index of Cultural Significance (ICS). The results showed that people’s mindsets, perceptions, and conceptions in interacting with their environment resulted in five landscape units which were then grouped into two categories, namely natural and artificial landscape units. As for the use of plants in their daily life, they classify them into 12 (twelve) useful plants. The people of Kampung Pasir Gaok carry out traditional conservation to protect and care for the biological resources in the MHSNP area based on the protection of the ecosystem as a whole. published by the Journal of Biodiversity and Environmental Sciences | JBES