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Arunachal Pradesh is a tribal inhabited area where most people are directly or indirectly dependent on forest resources for their sustenance. The present study was carried out in Deb, Lakang, Leporiang, Ompuli, and Parang villages of Papum Pare district of Arunachal Pradesh from June to December 2021. The Nyishi tribes mostly inhabit the study area. The Nyishi people have a long history of using ethnomedicinal plants for the treatment of various ailments. They also use these plants as a source of food. With time, the demand for such plants has increased rapidly leading to a declining population in the wild. Concerned about the diminishing population in the wild, the local people have ventured to grow them in the home gardens to meet their needs. The study found 21 ethnomedicinal plant species belonging to 16 families cultivated by the people in their kitchen gardens. Of these, 52% were herbs, 24% were shrubs, 19% were trees and 5% were climbers. Quantitative indices like Relative Frequency of Citations (RFC) and Fidelity Level (FL) of the plants have been also calculated. While the RFC ranged between 0.13 to 0.97 and FL between 51.1 to 96.7%. The study reveals the importance of ethnomedicinal plants as a source of food as well as curing a variety of ailments by the Nyishi tribes. Cultivation of ethnomedicinally and economically important plants in the home gardens is a useful strategy for conservation. It will also contribute towards the preservation of associated traditional ecological knowledge of the people. Therefore, the farmers should be encouraged and motivated for more such efforts to ensure the conservation of plants and food security in light of the changing climate.
Nanu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.