Ethnobotanical study of medicinal plants in Ifran's National Park (Morocco)

An ethnobotanic study of medicinal plants had been realized in Ifrane's National Park in Morocco. This Park, which presents a forester massif offering great amplitude in the field of the forest ambiance, undergoes strong pressures of overexploitation of space and resources. It is consequently the seat of important dynamic degradations. The demographic evolution, the analphabetism, the poverty, the irrational exploitation, the overgrazing are still the main factors of the degradation of these natural ecosystems. This study had permitted also to constitute a catalog of medicinal plants which are exploited in this zone and to describe their medicinal uses at the local scale and based on the local Known-how. The survey led with the local population (individual, households, collectors, herbalists/chemists) had permitted to identify 46 medicinal plants used in traditional pharmacopeia, of which 89% are spontaneous species. It shows also that among the 23 plant families encountered, only 9 are the most spread, comprising 32 species among a total of 46, a rate of 69.6%. The diseases object of the care in the basis of plants species identified, concerning in particular the digestive systems (33%), respiratory (16%) and circulatory (14%), the skin (17%) and rheumatism (14%). This study also had allowed to notice that leaves constitute the most used parts and that the mode of the most frequent preparation in the therapeutic treatment is the decoction. It also comes out from it that the conservation and the sustainable management of the medicinal species identified should be ensured through a management plan.