Speakers - PMBWC2025

Biography

Dr. A.K. Awasthi, formerly Professor and Head, Botany Department, Brahmanand College, C.S.J.M. University, Kanpur, has over thirty years of teaching experience in Botany to undergraduate and postgraduate classes. He has over forty years of research experience and worked in various capacities in the Botanical Survey of India, North–Eastern Circle, Shillong, and Andaman–Nicobar Circle, Port Blair, under the project “All India Coordinated Research Project on Ethnobiology” sponsored by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. He has to his credit over 50 research papers published in Indian and Foreign journals. He has attended several national and international conferences. He has guided seven Ph. D’s and author of books- A textbook of Algae; Ganges Algae: Significance and The Concepts of Ethnobotany. He is associated with various national and international societies and has been awarded multiple honors of repute. Recently, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Life Sciences for his outstanding contribution to the field of Life Sciences. He is the Executive Editor of an International research journal, "Nature and Life"(ISSN-3048-7250).

Abstract

Aspects of ethnobotany in developing regions of South and East Asia, especially the problems of socio-economic development of tribals vis-a-vis local resources and knowledge, seem to be a meaningful discourse of local, regional, and global dimensions. A test case of Bundelkhand, India, situates itself in an area of rich plant biodiversity, a vast array of local races, and their wild relatives of medicinal and crop plants. This region is also home to varied ethnic groups striving to carve their place in developing societies. Despite this interesting socio-economic construct, studies on the region have remained casual and patchy, providing no answers to tribal developments on the strength of local resource knowledge that remains untapped. The present paper deals with the socio-economic primary and significance of local–indigenous tribal knowledge with regional and global implications vis-a-vis ethnobotanical significance of forests of Bundelkhand, India.