Dehong Jingpo Pharmaceutical Heritage Of Traditional Knowledge And The Development Of The Status Quo

Ethnic groups in China have collected myriads of medicinal experiences as well as literatures of varying degrees arising out of their historical practices in dealing with various kinds of diseases for ages, among which, some are even established their own ethical specified medicinal theories and diagnostic treatments and put into use ever since due to the uniqueness and grass-roots feature. It serves as an important complementary component of the world's medical system; in the meanwhile, it plays an irreplaceable role in medical care and health services in economic underdevelopment regions. Furthermore, traditional medicine and natural therapy have been significantly emphasized thus thriving greatly due to the limitations and toxic side effects of modern medicine.China is one of the mega-biodiversity countries in the world with rich genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge. At present, protection issues of traditional knowledge including medical traditional knowledge have become the hot spots in the field of international biodiversity conservation and the focus of some international organizations and forums. Traditional knowledge has become a contentious issue between developing countries and developed countries on the problems of resources exploitation and intellectual property. Jingpo ethnic group is one of the small population ethnic groups in China. Traditional medicine of Jingpo ethnic group is one of great characteristics of whole Chinese traditional medicine, yet however, studies addressing this issue are less. Therefore, in this current study, the status of inheritance, development and protection of Jingpo traditional medicinal knowledge has been discussed, which in an effort to provide references to other minority's medical traditional knowledge'inheritance, development and protection.Multidisciplinary perspectives such as cultural anthropology as well as ethno-ecology been adopted in current study; approaches ranging from literatures reviewing and collecting, key informant interviewing, participatory observation to field investigation were carried out several times in Longchuan County, Dehong Prefecture, which is the most concentrated area of Jingpo group.This study is relying on a large number of first-hand information which mainly focusing on three aspects as follows:(1) Status of ethnic healers'heritage and development;(2) Traditional medical knowledge on the use of animal and plant resources;(3) Feasibility cases of access and benefit-sharing of Jingpo traditional medicinal knowledge. The status of inheritance and development of Jingpo traditional medicinal knowledge have been analyzed and studied holistically and systemically.Major results of current study concluded as follows: 1. The inheritance crisis of Jingpo traditional medicinal knowledge is more prominent and representative in ethnic groups of China based on multi-variables analysis such as Jingpo ethnic healers'gender, age, education background, the number of potential inheritors, social roles, way of inheritance, customary law, the doctor-patient relationship, the status of knowledge exchange and update, etc.2. Internal factors such as customary law, language and the way of the inheritance have greater impact on the inheritance of traditional knowledge of the Jingpo medicine and the roles in society has not yet been recognized by the state system, moreover, the imbalance of doctor-patient mutual benefit relationship which exerted by commodity economy serves as the major external factor.3.30items of the Jingpo traditional knowledge of medicinal animals ranging from their officinal part, function and methods of application were record for the first time;55items of traditional knowledge of medicinal plants have been supplemented and updated; Currently the record of Jingpo traditional knowledge of use animal and plant medicine resources for health care has not yet been a comprehensive and effective record, thus it has great potential of exploitation in future.4. The medical practices of traditional treatment of Jingpo definitely has its own uniqueness, for instance, soaking in wine is a common practice in medicine utilization, and the phenomenon of remaining practice of shaman. This kind of unique phenomenon closed related to its traditional cooking culture, traditional religion, we thus need to pay great attention to the impact of traditional culture on the conservation and inheritance of Jingpo traditional medicinal knowledge.5. With respect to the situation of the access to medicinal biological resources of Jingpo ethnic group, currently the practice of exploitation and utilization by Jingpo traditional ethnic healers posed an adverse impact on local medicinal resources, on the other hand, the major reasons which contribute most to the medicinal resources degradation is the external reason which lies in irrational exploitation.6. Benefic-sharing mode regards to the Jingpo traditional medicine is expected to be established. We suggest that in order to promote the preservation and further development of Jingpo traditional knowledge with medicinal knowledge involved, benefit sharing should serves as the guideline, government policies should serve as backup also, research institutions should put efforts to tackle technological problems, commercial institutions should try to standardize the operation process. With all the efforts put into should we have chance to solve the issue for better.