Home Institution

Lafayette College

Publication Date

Spring 2015

Program Name

Tanzania-Zanzibar: Coastal Ecology and Natural Resource Management

Abstract

Traditional medicine is used as a major source of health care in developing countries. A small island off the coast of Tanzania, Zanzibar has traditional medicine embedded in its culture. Informal interviews of community members and healers in four different villages as well as interviews with the Department of Forestry and the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Unit were conducted over a four week study. This study found that community members of four villages in Zanzibar supported the idea of a regulation of traditional medicine by the government. It also found that the majority of traditional medicine users have noticed a decrease in medicinal plants. The support of traditional medicine reaffirms the importance of improvement of traditional medicine through the implementation of the regulation under the Traditional and Alternative Medicine Policy of 2008. Natural resource conservation is one of the ways in which the regulation could best protect the community use of traditional medicine in Zanzibar.

Disciplines

African Studies | Alternative and Complementary Medicine | Community-Based Research | Health and Medical Administration | Medicine and Health | Medicine and Health Sciences | Public Health Education and Promotion

Share

Article Location

 
COinS