Vital role for ethnobiology in new era of biodiversity conservation in China

Biodiversity is the product of interactions of earth life and environment. Over time, the dynamic changes of biodiversity in time and space pattern resulted by natural environment, which is natural process of biodiversity change over billion years. However, since human being entered into industrial society, the change of this natural process accelerated by human activities mainly caused by over-exploration of biological resources and habitat lost that created great social and economic wealth but loss of biodiversity and habitat. Today, the biodiversity extinction speed is even accelerated compared to any time in human history. Earth biodiversity faces a crisis and biodiversity extinction is a threat to all mankind. Since the 1980s, ethnobiology as an interdisciplinary scientific research field has been introduced and developed in China, covering ethnobotany, ethnoecology, and ethnomedicine. The fundamental scientific principal of ethnobiology is the study of human interaction with plants, animals, fungus, ecosystems, and medical sourcing plants, with focus on traditional botanical, ecological, and medical knowledge of people in different cultures for application into sustainable development of socio-economic and environment today. The nature of ethnobiology is a nature-people based science in subject and closely linked with practices of biodiversity resources maintenance. It is, therefore, ethnobiological science has vital roles for biodiversity conservation in China and the world. In China, ethnobiology can make a contribution to three major areas of biodiversity conservation: 1) documentation of traditional knowledge in use of biodiversity species and ecosystems and its management practices, 2) application of ethnobiological knowledge and traditional techniques into rural community reconstruction and conservation activities, and 3) supporting implementation of CBD and Nagoya Protocol on ‘Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity’. This speech will emphasize on application of ethnobiological sciences into sustainable use of biodiversity resources in China for biodiversity conservation.