Fourth World Journal Special Issue on Indigenous Peoples, Medicinal Plants and Wild Foods, Winter 2018

The Fourth World Journal is pleased to announce that it will publish a special themed, peer reviewed issue on “Indigenous Peoples Medicinal Plants and Wild Foods.” There is an increasing desire in the global health community to learn more beneficial approaches of nutrition for growing populations in all bioregions. The focus in this Special Issue is the use of low-resource strategies that are culturally and ecologically appropriate to the locality. Plants and other wildlife foods are known the world over to have medicinal value. The nutrient and pharmacological density of these resources is often overlooked, undocumented, or exploited for purely commercial purposes.

Traditional medicine systems are the “mother” of all medicine. More than 80% of the world’s population uses a form of traditional medicine to treat primary health. The intimate connection between life on earth and the living universe has formed the foundation for virtually all systems of healing for millennia.

Forces of “modernization” and “technological development” have an adverse effect on wild foods, medicinal plants and indigenous knowledge about these sources of health. These effects result even as there is burgeoning informed research and interest in indigenous knowledge systems. The purpose of this themed issue, therefore, is to bring recognition to the myriad of potentially useful foods and medicines in the wild that exist, and to stimulate a dialogue on how to ensure their cultural uses and benefits.