Abstract

Strandja Nature Park (NP) is located in the south-easternmost part of Bulgaria, bordering the Black Sea to the East and the Republic of Turkey to the South. It possesses unique flora, with preserved naturalness to a very high extent, rich of wild medicinal plants, representing 70% of the species of these natural resources in Bulgaria.
It is subject to a conflict between the Directorate of the Park, trying to achieve a sustainable management of the medicinal plants following a scientific conservationist approach, but lacking the necessary monitoring basis, and the collectors and traders of these natural resources, who harvest them uncontrollably, sometimes in bigger than permitted quantities, in improper way and from protected sites, thus threatening their diversity and distribution. The high unemployment rate and the poverty in the region are among the crucial factors for the collection of wild medicinal plants for commercial purposes, as a wide group of the population is dependant on these incomes to make up their living.
On another hand an indirect conflict occurs with the ethical attitude of the local elderly population, bearer of the traditional spiritual culture, towards the wild medicinal plants as inseparable part of their rituals, customs and lifestyle, therefore a symbolic part of their natural environment. As an inheritor of the Thracian megalithic culture the local population has preserved the typical ancient healing traditions in which the local medicinal plants play a central role.
Therefore there is a need to open an intercultural dialogue between the different conceptions of the environment and the medicinal plants in particular, in order to mitigate these conflicts at earliest stage.
The goals of this study are to explore and understand the local knowledge and attitude to the medicinal plants, to compare and discuss the different actors’ visions and perceptions, finding commonly acceptable solutions, to be integrated within the multilateral process of sustainable management of these resources in the Strandja NP. Specific objectives are (1) to perform an ethnobotanical survey, which hand down the preserved indigenous attitude and knowledge, presently threaten with exctinction, to the younger generations, and on the other hand acknowledge it as equally important in decision-making, related to management of these local natural resources, as the scientific one, (2) to assess and discuss the perceptions and attitudes of the different actor groups, involved directly or indirectly in the management of the medicinal plants, (3) to conduct chorological and phytocenotic surveys in a participatory way enabling the resource assessment of the medicinal plants in the Park, which is a basis for monitoring of the dynamics and impact monitoring.
The research will follow a transdisciplinary approach, based on the Sustainable Development Appraisal methodology, which combines non-scientific knowledge with classical scientific methods from an external point of view.
The expected results of the study are (1) a compiled information, presented in written and interactive way, of the local knowledge about the medicinal plants, which will remain available for the future generations, (2) a comparison between the perceptions of the different actors on the management of these natural resources and establishment of a communication model for mutual decision-making, which allows to be extrapolated into the process of sustainable management of other natural resources of Strandja NP, (3) an interactive GIS-based product, comprising the scientific information and the local knowledge, to be used as a monitoring basis as well as for educational purposes.
The research project will be executed in collaboration between the CDE at the University of Berne, the Faculty of Geology and Geography at the University of Sofia “Saint Kliment Ohridsky” and the University of Forestry in Sofia, by an interdisciplinary team, formed of this PhD thesis and two Master theses respectively at both Bulgarian high-education institutions.
The scientific significance of the project is that it (1) brings the local and traditional knowledge and attitudes towards the environment with innovative and transdisciplinary approach in the contemporary Bulgarian science, (2) contributes to the research and exploration of the Strandja NP, (3) presents research results in a easily comprehensible form, suitable for educational purposes, using remote sensing and GIS technology, and (4) establishes a scientific collaboration between the University of Berne and both the University of Sofia and University of Forestry in Sofia.

The project started in April 2005 and fieldwork activities are envisaged until the end of 2006. During the fieldwork in 2005 the research team gained an insight of almost all the settlements on the territory of Strandja NP, their inhabitants and the key informants among them; their living conditions, everyday lifestyle, their worries and the differences in their attitude to the nature and the medicinal plants in particular. A total of 52 in-depth interviews were conducted, while the number of the approached local people reaches over 100.

A fruitful contact to representatives of the different other actor categories was also established, such as civil servants from the Park’s Directorate, the local Forestry departments and NGOs, active in the study area. Some of them got involved in the fieldwork by taking part in participatory transect walks.

In the process of synchronisation of the research project with the local authorities and NGOs a need for a conceptual change was identified in order to secure also a practical benefit for the local communities. Hence the overall goal of the current research evolved from “defining shared views in between the internal local knowledge and the external scientific knowledge concerning the medicinal plants of Strandja NP as a baseline for a mutual sustainable management of these natural resources”, to include also “while providing the opportunity to interested local people to directly benefit from the research outcomes by participating in pilot activities for potential new livelihood generation ways”.

Therefore the plant species, selected for a subject of the partner phytocenotic and the chorological surveys are:
- strandjanska borovinka (Vaccinium arctostaphylos), an endemic Tertiery relict, which most Western-European habitat is in Strandja (Eastern is spread only in the Caucasus). It is one of the components of the rare community of South Euxinian type and of the sub-biome „temperate broad-leaved deciduous forests with evergreen underbush“, which distribution is limitedly known and not at all mapped till now. Moreover it is one of the plants with a high potential for securing a livelihood for the local people by domesticating it and producing jam and other products out of it, to be sold as a local speciality to the tourists, as well as a touristic attraction to be seen in its natural habitat for its rarity;
- podezichest zalist (Ruscus hypoglossum) and bodliv zalist (Ruscus aculeatus), which are medicinal plants, but are being collected for decorational purposes, although their collection is forbidden by the Bulgarian Medicinal Plants Act. Their natural distribution is also limitedly known and to enable their resource assessment, related to the sustainable management of these species, a proper mapping of their localities, ecological and phytocenotic analysis are envisaged. There will be an attempt to identify possible unknown localities of these species by remote sensing, using the information from satellite images with a high spatial resolution.

The general conclusion of the fieldwork during 2005 is confirming that the ethnobotanical study is collecting valuable information, which has never been gathered in such a way and detail before, information, threatened with extinction with the death of these local elderly people, hence making it unique. The phytocenotic and chorological research are provoking high interest among the representatives of the local authorities and NGOs concerned, as they are also collecting unknown till now information in an innovative for the Bulgarian scientists method, combining traditional knowledge with the latest modern technologies.

Supervisors of the PhD project are:

Hans Hurni, Prof. Dr.
CDE-GIUB, Steigerhubelstrasse 3, 3008 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. +41 31 631 88 76; Fax: +41 31 631 85 44
E-mail:hurni@giub.unibe.ch

Anton Popov, Assoc. Prof. Dr.
Faculty of Geology and Geography, University of Sofia “Saint Kliment Ohridsky”
Tzar Osvoboditel Bld. 15, 1504 Sofia, Bulgaria
Tel. +359 2 930 82 61; Fax: +359 2 944 64 87
E-mail: popov@gea.uni-sofia.bg

Chavdar Gussev
Institute of Botanics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Akad. G. Bonchev Str., bl. 23, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria
Tel. + 359 2 979 21 53; Fax: + 359 2 71 90 32
E-mail: chgussev@bio.bas.bg

Contacts of the students:

Polina Kireva, PhD stundent
Center for Development and Environment, University of Berne
E-mail: Polina.Kireva@cde.unibe.ch

Ivan Kamburov, MSc student
University of Forestry, Sofia
E-mail: kamburiv@mail.bg

Zahari Savov, MSc student
University of Sofia “Saint Kliment Ohridsky”
E-mail: zahoo@netbg.com