TITLE:
Wild Fruits Traditionally Gathered by the Malinke Ethnic Group in the Edge of Niokolo Koba Park (Senegal)
AUTHORS:
Mathieu Gueye, Nicolas Cyrille Ayessou, Souleye Koma, Seydina Diop, Leonard Elie Akpo, Papa Ibra Samb
KEYWORDS:
Ethnobotany; Traditional Knowledge; Wild Edible Fruits; Malinke; Senegal
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Plant Sciences,
Vol.5 No.9,
April
11,
2014
ABSTRACT: In rural areas, the local population draws from several forest resources
needed for survival including food. Then it is a granary for these native
people. Unfortunately, useful wild plants are highly threatened, especially by
various human activities. Because of this situation we started with open semi-structured
interviews to identify wild fruit plants, their consumed organs and their seasonality
in the rural community of Tomboronkoto. Tomboronkoto is located at the edge of
the Niokolo-Koba National park (Senegal) and is mainly inhabited by Malinke. We
identified 45 wild fruit species belonging to 38 genera that can be divided in
28 botanical families. The more diversified are successively the Anacardiaceae, Tiliaceae, Apocynaceae and Caesalpiniaceae. More than half of
the plants inventoried are trees (53%). We can distinguish three categories of fruits
depending on their Fidelity Level (FL) that informs us about their
popularity: the well-known or common fruits, moderately known fruits and little
known fruits. A dozen wild fruits happen to be greatly appreciated with very
high fidelity level (100% to 84%). The fruits of Saba senegalensis, Adansonia digitata, Parkia biglobosa, Tamarindus indica and Vitellaria paradoxa are the most variously
used because they are appreciated being fresh or cooked. Only fruits of Ficussur are available all year long.
The large majority of the most consumed fruits are available between the end of
the hot dry season until the middle of the rainy season. This period coincides
with the period where crops from the previous rainy season are depleted and the
new crops are not yet ripe. Thus, these wild fruits would greatly contribute to
food security in this area during the lean period.